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Dictionary:

cult

  (kŭlt) pronunciation
n.
    1. A religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.
    2. The followers of such a religion or sect.
  2. A system or community of religious worship and ritual.
  3. The formal means of expressing religious reverence; religious ceremony and ritual.
  4. A usually nonscientific method or regimen claimed by its originator to have exclusive or exceptional power in curing a particular disease.
    1. Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing.
    2. The object of such devotion.
  6. An exclusive group of persons sharing an esoteric, usually artistic or intellectual interest.

[Latin cultus, worship, from past participle of colere, to cultivate.]

cultic cul'tic or cult'ish adj.
cultism cult'ism n.
cultist cult'ist n.
 
 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: cult

Collective veneration or worship (e.g., the cult of the saints — meaning collective veneration of the saints — in Roman Catholicism). In the West, the term has come to be used for groups that are perceived to have deviated from normative religions in belief and practice. They typically have a charismatic leader and attract followers who are in some way disenfranchised from the mainstream of society. Cults as thus defined are often viewed as foreign or dangerous.

For more information on cult, visit Britannica.com.

 
Classical Literature Companion: cult

cult, the worship of a god or hero with rites and ceremonies. Believing in, respecting, or recognizing the gods was to both Greeks and Romans primarily a matter of observing their cult by performing acts of worship. Worship consisted of correct action rather than intense personal conviction or spirituality. The most important aspect of cult was making an offering to the god by sacrifice, libation, or dedication (i.e. gift of an object). The offering was accompanied by prayer, on the principle of do ut des, ‘I give (to you) so that you will give (to me)’.

 
Archaeology Dictionary: cult

[De]

A fragmentary religious grouping, to which individuals are loosely affiliated, but which lacks any permanent structure.
 
US History Encyclopedia: Cults

Scholars and religious leaders, as well as the public, often have debated the defining characteristics of religious groups known as cults. Many Christian leaders, disturbed by the increase in such groups, label almost all variations from mainstream religion as cults, contending that they have a disruptive effect on society and on their followers. Others divide religious movements into three categories: churches, sects, and cults. All agree that churches represent mainstream religious authority. Mainstream religious leaders disagree on the characteristics of sects and cults. Some contend that sects represent a variation of Western religions and that cults adopt belief systems from non-Western sources. Others argue that all religious movements, Western or non-Western, begin as cults and, as they grow in popularity and power, evolve into sects and, finally, churches. Using this second argument, one could identify the Seventh-Day Adventists, the Mormons, and the Christian Scientists as groups that successfully shed their cult status and acknowledge Utopian Communities like Oneida, Amana, New Harmony, and the Shakers as religious groups that failed to survive as churches. Basically, the categorization of religious alternatives as cults rests on the extent to which they challenge mainstream religious institutions.

Historically, the United States has seen a variety of religious movements. Since the earliest years of European colonization, tension has existed between members of churches and adherents of smaller and less empowered religious beliefs. The nation's ensurance of disestablishment (that the state would not designate a particular religious group as favored by civil authorities) and the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom allowed a number of alternative religious groups to take root and flourish in the United States. Indeed, the same national guidelines that allowed nontraditional religious groups to establish themselves in the United States also created a climate favorable to religious expression and may account for the generally religious character of most Americans. Religious groups identified as cults proliferated during the twentieth century. Decline of religious authority, increase in contact between people of diverse backgrounds, and development of mass communication allowed cult leaders to gain personal followings through newspapers and other periodicals, radio, television, and computerized mailing lists. Cults appeared in all regions of the United States, often in areas receiving an influx of migrants. In the early 1900s the West Coast, a region experiencing massive immigration, became known for religious experimentation. Mainstream religious denominations were not well established there, and migrants formed groups with beliefs reflecting their new lives. Cults often arose from groups virtually excluded from mainstream denominations and even from society at large, such as people of color, women, the young, and the poor. Marginalized, they found strength through religious alternatives. Cults also appealed to people seeking to restore their physical and mental health, having found little hope from mainstream religion.

One of the first mass cults was Father Divine's Peace Mission Movement. An African American minister who taught the power of positive thinking and encouraged his disciples to recognize him as God, Father Divine built a national and international following beginning in the 1930s and lasting through the 1950s. Known for elaborate ceremonies that often consisted of extravagant banquets, he attracted much attention. Other African American religious leaders, such as Daddy Grace, founder of the United House of Prayer for All People, and Guy W. Ballard, leader of the I AM, came to national prominence during these same years.

Cults increased tremendously in the 1960s and 1970s. In this era of rebellion and reform, many people were inspired to question authority. A variety of faiths appeared, with Eastern mysticism gaining much popularity. Probably the most notable new group was the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), better known as the Hare Krishnas. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada had established the ISKCON in India and brought it to the United States in 1965, when he began proselytizing in New York City's Tompkins Square Park and attracted followers associated with the hippie movement. He opened a temple and commenced publication of Back to Godhead, devoted to yoga, meditation, and vegetarianism. A resurgence of interest in Christianity in the 1970s led to the Jesus People movement, which sponsored Bible studies and revivals. Several of its groups established communes. Out of this cult came the Family of Love, better known as the Children of God. A highly controversial group, the Children of God borrowed features from the Christian holiness movement. The cult was accused of recruiting by brainwashing and through a technique known as flirty fishing, which involved securing converts through sexual favors.

Of all groups to gain prominence during this era, the Unification Church, founded by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, proved the most controversial. Oriented toward fundamentalist Christianity and politically conservative, the Unification Church supervised the lives and activities of followers and focused on preparing the world for God's kingdom on earth. On joining the church, single members practiced celibacy and devoted themselves to missionary work. At the end of their initiation, church leaders paired members with suitable mates and married them in mass ceremonies. Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, the Unification Church recruited on college campuses and gained a foothold in publishing through ownership of the Washington Times, while building a large portfolio of business investments. Reverend Moon alarmed many members of mainstream churches through the authority he exerted and his claim of being the Lord of the Second Advent, a role analogous to Christ.

An anticult movement developed during this time, targeting so-called destructive cults. According to anti-cultists, destructive cults exhibited three characteristics: demand for unquestioning acceptance of a leader, recruitment through brainwashing, and maintenance of secrecy. Anticultists received enormous attention in the mid-1960s with the publication of The Kingdom of the Cults by an Evangelical Christian author, Walter Martin. The book underwent thirty-six printings between 1965 and 1985 and was still in print in 2001. It heightened concerns about the possible use of brainwashing in cults.

The anticult movement developed methods of de-programming, designed to reorient cult members toward mainstream spirituality, but in many ways the methods of deprogrammers resembled the tactics of the supposed programmers. In the 1970s there were frequent reports of families who hired deprogrammers to kidnap their children from a cult, take them to secluded places, and spend days, sometimes weeks, breaking down their acceptance of cult teachings.

The rise of the anticult movement in the United States led to tensions and sometimes even violence. One of the most alarming incidents occurred in Guyana, South America, where the San Francisco cult minister Jim Jones had relocated his Peoples Temple in the hope of establishing an interracial religious commune and farming cooperative. In November 1978, shortly after U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan and four members of his party were killed by Jones's cult members, Jones presided over a suicide ceremony in which his followers drank cyanide.

Academics who study groups targeted by anticultists prefer the term "new religious movement," to the term "cult" and criticize anticultists for jeopardizing religious freedom in the United States. They emphasize that destructive cults are rare, that few cult members are coerced into joining, and that most cult followers leave groups of their own accord.

Incidents at the close of the twentieth century again increased fears of cult activity. Concern over the dangers presented by cults that stockpiled arms achieved national prominence in 1993 when a clash occurred between federal authorities and the Branch Davidians, a Bible-based cult led by a former rock musician named David Koresh, who claimed to be a messiah. Another armed cult, the Church Universal and Triumphant, led by Elizabeth Clare Prophet, received attention for its activities and ownership of bomb shelters in Paradise Valley, Montana. The group's presence generated a great deal of hostility from the local population. In March 1997, members of the Heaven's Gate cult engaged in a mass suicide, believing their souls would enter higher beings in a spaceship traveling behind the comet Hale-Bopp. The group, led by Marshall Herff Applewhite, used the Internet to recruit members and supported itself by designing World Wide Web sites. Its use of contemporary technology led many anticultists to fear the potential reach of the Inter-net as the millennium approached, but nothing on the scale of the Heaven's Gate suicides ocurred in the United States between 1997 and 2001.

Bibliography

Bromley, David G., and Anson D. Shupe, Jr. Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare. Boston: Beacon Press, 1981.

Melton, J. Gordon. Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America. Rev. and updated ed. Religious Information Systems Series, vol. 7. New York: Garland, 1992.

Melton, J. Gordon, and Robert L. Moore. The Cult Experience: Responding to the New Religious Pluralism. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1982.

Washington, Joseph R., Jr. Black Sects and Cults: The Power Axis in an Ethnic Ethic. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor, 1973.

—Jill Watts/F. B.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: cult,
ritual observances involved in worship of, or communication with, the supernatural or its symbolic representations. A cult includes the totality of ideas, activities, and practices associated with a given divinity or social group. It includes not only ritual activities but also the beliefs and myths centering on the rites. The objects of the cult are often things associated with the daily life of the celebrants. The English scholar Jane Harrison pointed out the importance of the cult in the development of religion. Sacred persons may have their own cults. The cult may be associated with a single person, place, or object or may have much broader associations. There may be officials entrusted with the rites, or anyone who belongs may be allowed to take part in them.

The term cult is now often used to refer to contemporary religious groups whose beliefs and practices depart from the conventional norms of society. These groups vary widely in doctrine, leadership, and ritual, but most stress direct experience of the divine and duties to the cult community. Such cults tend to proliferate during periods of social unrest; most are transient and peripheral. Many cults that have emerged in the United States since the late 1960s have been marked by renewed interest in mysticism and Asian religions, but many others have had Christian roots.

Such major U.S. cults as the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church and Hare Krishna, a movement derived from Hinduism, have stirred wide controversy. Cults' insularity and distrust of society sometimes lead to violent conflicts with the law. In 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana, followers of Jim Jones killed a U.S. congressman who was investigating Jones, and then Jones and more than 900 others committed mass suicide. In 1993 a gunfight near Waco, Tex., between federal officers and David Koresh and his Branch Davidian followers led to a 51-day siege that ended in a blaze that left Koresh and 82 people dead. Other notorious cults have included the Japanese Aum Shinri Kyo, whose adherents were responsible for a number of murders, including a 1995 nerve-gas attack in the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 and injured thousands; the Order of the Solar Temple, whose members died by murder or suicide in Quebec, Switzerland, and France in a series of incidents in the mid- to late 1990s; Heaven's Gate, a group formed in the mid-1970s whose 39 members committed mass suicide in California in 1997; and the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, a millennialist Ugandan church, more than 900 members of which apparently died by mass murder and mass suicide in 2000.

Bibliography

See D. J. Reavis, The Ashes of Waco (1995); J. D. Tabor and E. V. Gallagher, Why Waco? (1995); R. J. Lifton, Destroying the World to Save It (1999).

 
Occultism & Parapsychology Encyclopedia: Cults

A term used for many years in social science to refer to religious groups whose basic religious beliefs and practices differ markedly from those dominant in the particular culture in which they are found. The term cult has, however, since the 1970s become a pejorative term used to describe unpopular religious groups. Many groups labeled as "cults" are Spiritualist, occult, and metaphysical groups. The Theosophical Society, the Spiritualist movement, Christian Science, and occult groups such as the Rosicrucians were among the first groups so negatively labeled. In social science, the term has been replaced by the less prejudicial terms "new religion," new religious movement, or "alternative religion."

Contemporary use of cult was nurtured for many decades by Evangelical Christian organizations, some organized as late as the 1930s, to oppose groups that deviated from Christian orthodoxy. In the mid-1970s, a more secular anticult movement developed in the United States to oppose several new religions that focused their attention on young adult recruits. The major organization of the contemporary anticult movement is the Cult Awareness Network, which grew out of the older Citizens Freedom Foundation. It has nurtured a number of similar organizations in Europe and South America.

The anticult movement has encouraged the publication of a vast literature denouncing "cults." This literature is characterized by adoption of the "brainwashing" hypothesis to explain the destructive nature of the groups under attack. Such groups are said to have an unusual power to control the minds of their members to the extent that they lose the ability to think straight and evaluate their experience. According to the literature, members have been "programmed" and act like robots following every command of their leaders; they cannot choose to leave the harmful situation in which they have been trapped. This analysis justifies an intrusion into their lives by anticult forces. In extreme cases, such intrusions take the form of "de-programming," a forceful removal of the person from the group and the application of social and psychological pressure to convince the person to break his or her relationship with the group.

In 1987-88, the American Psychological Association examined the issue of brainwashing or mind control in relation to new religions and other groups, such as psychological training groups, that had been accused of using techniques of "coercive persuasion" against their adherents. The association concluded that such theories were based on insufficient scientific data and that the work done was severely flawed methodologically. This opinion was confirmed by the American Sociological Association and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Most scholars on new religions had rejected the brainwashing hypothesis shortly after its proposal in the early 1980s, and those opinions by the several scholarly bodies have been decisive in moving discussion of the so-called cults to other issues.

The anticult movement has joined the ranks of various opposition groups (anti-Catholic, anti-Mormon, anti-Semitic) that have dotted the religious landscape in recent centuries. In the meantime, scholars have noted a radical jump in religious pluralism in Western society.

Sources:

Ellwood, Robert S., Jr. Alternative Altars: Unconventional and Eastern Spirituality in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

——. Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973.

Melton, J. Gordon. The Encyclopedic Handbook of the Cults. New York: Garland Publishing, 1992.

Melton, J. Gordon, and Robert L. Moore. The Cult Experience. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1982.

 
Science Dictionary: cult

In anthropology, an organization for the conduct of ritual, magical, or other religious observances. Many so-called primitive tribes, for example, have ancestor cults, in which dead ancestors are considered divine and activities are organized to respect their memory and invoke their aid. A cult is also a religious group held together by a dominant, often charismatic individual, or by the worship of a divinity, an idol, or some other object. (See animism, fetish, and totemism.)

  • The term cult often suggests extreme beliefs and bizarre behavior.

    •  
    Quotes About: Cult

    Quotes:

    "What is a cult? It just means not enough people to make a minority." - Robert Altman

    "A cult is a religion with no political power." - Thomas Wolfe

     
    Wikipedia: cult


    This article does not discuss "cult" in its original meaning of "religious practice;" for that usage see Cult (religious practice). See Cult (disambiguation) for more meanings of the term "cult."

    Cult roughly refers to a cohesive social group devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture considers outside the mainstream, with a notably positive or negative popular perception. In common or populist usage, "cult" has a positive connotation for groups of art, music, writing, fiction, and fashion devotees,[1] but a negative connotation for new religious, extreme political, questionable therapeutic, and pyramidal business groups. For this reason, most, if not all, non-fan groups that are called cults reject this label.

    A group's populist cult status begins as rumors of its novel belief system, its great devotions, its idiosyncratic practices, its perceived harmful or beneficial effects on members, or its perceived opposition to the interests of mainstream cultures and governments. Cult rumors most often refer to artistic and fashion movements of passing interest, but persistent rumors may escalate popular concern about relatively small and recently founded religious movements, or non-religious groups, perceived to engage in excessive member control or exploitation.

    Some anthropologists and sociologists studying cults have argued that no one has yet been able to define “cult” in a way that enables the term to identify only groups that have been identified as problematic. However, without the "problematic" concern, scientific criteria of characteristics attributed to cults do exist.[2] A little-known example is the Alexander and Rollins, 1984, scientific study concluding that the socially well-received group Alcoholics Anonymous is a cult,[3] yet Vaillant, 2005, further concluded that AA is beneficial.[4]

    Laypersons participate in cultism studies to a degree not found in other academic disciplines, making it difficult to demarcate the boundaries of science from theology, politics, news reporting, fashion, and family cultural values. From about 1920 onward,[5] the populist negative connotation progressively interfered with scientific study using the neutral historical meaning of "cult" in the sociology of religion.[6] A 20th century attempt by sociologists to replace "cult" with the term New Religious Movement (NRM), was rejected by the public [7] and only partly accepted by the scientific community. [8]

    During the 20th century groups referred to as cults by governments and media became globally controversial. The televised rise and fall of less than 20 Destructive cults known for mass suicide and murder tarred hundreds of NRM groups having less serious government and civil legal entanglements, against a background of thousands of unremarkable NRM groups known only to their neighbors. Following the Solar Temple destructive cult incidents on two continents, France authorized the 1995 Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France. This commission set a mostly non-controversial standard for human rights objections to exploitative group practices, and mandated a controversial remedy for cultist abuse, known in English as cult watching, which was quietly adopted by other countries. The United States responded with human rights challenges to French cult control policies, and France charged the U.S. with interfering in French internal affairs. In recent years, France's troublesome public cult watching lists appear to have been retired in favor of confidential police intelligence gathering.

    Definitions

    The literal and traditional meaning of the word cult is derived from the Latin cultus, meaning "care" or "adoration."[9] In English, "cult" remains neutral and a technical term within this context to refer to the "cult of Artemis at Ephesus" and the "cult figures" that accompanied it, or to "the importance of the Ave Maria in the cult of the Virgin."

    In non-English European terms, the cognates of the English word "cult" are neutral, and refer mainly to divisions within a single faith, a case where English speakers might use the word "sect," as in "Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism are sects (or denominations) within Christianity." In French or Spanish, culte or culto simply means "worship" or "religious attendance"; thus an association cultuelle is an association whose goal is to organize religious worship and practices.

    By comparison, the non-English European cognates of "sect" mean what "cult" does in English: secte (French), secta (Spanish), sekta Russian, and Sekte (German) which also has other definitions.

    Conservative Christian authors, especially evangelical Protestants, define a cult as a religion which claims to be in conformance with Biblical truth, yet deviates from it. Walter Martin, the pioneer of the Christian countercult movement, gave in his 1955 book the following definition:[10]

    By cultism we mean the adherence to doctrines which are pointedly contradictory to orthodox Christianity and which yet claim the distinction of either tracing their origin to orthodox sources or of being in essential harmony with those sources. Cultism, in short, is any major deviation from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith.

    Author Robert M. Bowman Jr. defines a cult as "A religious group originating as a heretical sect and maintaining fervent commitment to heresy," while noting that the adjective "cultic" can be applied to groups approaching this standard to varying degrees.[11]

    Dictionary definitions of "cult"

    Dictionary definitions of the term "cult" include at least eight different meanings. These include both classic and unorthodox religious practice, extreme political practice, objects or concepts of intense devotion including popular fashion, and systems for the cure of disease based on dogmatic teachings.[12]

    The Merriam-Webster online dictionary lists five different definitions of the word "cult."[13]

    1. Formal religious veneration
    2. A system of religious beliefs and ritual; also: its body of adherents;
    3. A religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also: its body of adherents;
    4. A system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator;
    5. Great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book).

    The Random House Unabridged Dictionary's eight definitions of "cult" are:

    1. A particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies;
    2. An instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers;
    3. The object of such devotion;
    4. A group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc;
    5. Group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols;
    6. A religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader;
    7. The members of such a religion or sect;
    8. Any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific.

    Webster's New World College Dictionary defines "cult" as:

    1a. a system of religious worship or ritual
    1b. a quasi-religious group, often living in a colony, with a charismatic leader who indoctrinates members with unorthodox or extremist views, practices or beliefs
    2a. devoted attachment to, or extravagant admiration for, a person, principle or lifestyle, especially when regarded as a fad [the cult of nudism]
    2b. the object of such attachment
    3. a group of followers, sect

    For authoritative British usage, the Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English definitions of "cult" and "sect" are:

    cult[14]
    1 a system of religious worship directed towards a particular figure or object.
    2 a small religious group regarded as strange or as imposing excessive control over members.
    3 something popular or fashionable among a particular section of society.
    sect[15]
    1 a group of people with different religious beliefs (typically regarded as heretical) from those of a larger group to which they belong.
    2 a group with extreme or dangerous philosophical or political ideas.

    British "sect" formerly included a contextually implied meaning, of what "cult" now means in both USA and the UK.[16] Some other nations still use the foreign equivalents of old British "sect" ("secte," "sekte," or "secta." etc.) to imply "cult."[17] Both words, as well as "cult" in its original sense of cultus (e.g., Middle Ages cult of Mary), must be understood to correctly interpret 20th century popular cult references in world English.

    Sociological definitions of religion

    According to one common typology among sociologists, religious groups are classified as ecclesias, denominations, cults or sects.

    A very common definition in the sociology of religion for cult is one of the four terms making up the church-sect typology. Under this definition, a cult refers to a religious group with a high degree of tension with the surrounding society combined with novel religious beliefs. This is distinguished from sects, which have a high degree of tension with society but whose beliefs are traditional to that society, and ecclesias and denominations, which are groups with a low degree of tension and traditional beliefs.

    According to Rodney Stark's A Theory of Religion, most religions start out their lives as cults or sects, i.e. groups in high tension with the surrounding society. Over time, they tend to either die out or become more established, mainstream and in less tension with society. Cults are new groups with a novel theology, while sects are attempts to return mainstream religions to what the group views as their original purity.[18] As set out by Stark and Bainbridge, the term "cult", is used distinctly among the general definitions, and is closely related to the historically changed definitions of "sect." In this contemporary view, a "sect" is specifically "a deviant religious organization with traditional beliefs and practices," as compared to a "cult" which indicates a "a deviant religious organization with novel beliefs and practices."[19]

    Since this definition of "cult" is defined in part in terms of tension with the surrounding society, the same group may both be and not a cult at different places or times. For example, Christianity was by this definition a cult in 1st and 2nd century Rome, while in fifth century Rome it became rather an ecclesia (the state religion). Similarly, very conservative Islam could constitute a cult in the West but also the ecclesia in some conservative Muslim countries. Likewise, because novelty of beliefs and tension are elements in the definition: the Hare Krishnas are not a cult but a sect in India (since their beliefs are largely traditional to Hindu culture), while they are by this definition a cult in the Western world (since their beliefs are largely novel to Christian culture).

    The English sociologist Roy Wallis[20] argues that a cult is characterized "epistemological individualism" by which he means that "the cult has no clear locus of final authority beyond the individual member." Cults, according to Wallis, are generally described as "oriented towards the problems of individuals, loosely structured, tolerant, non-exclusive", making "few demands on members", without possessing a "clear distinction between members and non-members", having "a rapid turnover of membership", and are transient collectives with vague boundaries and fluctuating belief systems Wallis asserts that cults emerge from the "cultic milieu". Wallis contrast a cult with a sect that he asserts are characterized by "epistemological authoritarianism": sects possess some authoritative locus for the legitimate attribution of heresy. According to Wallis, "sects lay a claim to possess unique and privileged access to the truth or salvation and their committed adherents typically regard all those outside the confines of the collectivity as 'in error'".[21][22]

    Psychological definition

    Studies of the psychological aspects of cults focus on the individual person, and factors relating to the choice to become involved as well as the subsequent effects on individuals. Under one view, an important factor is coercive persuasion which suppresses the ability of people to reason, think critically, and make choices in their own best interest.

    Studies of religious, political, and other cults have identified a number of key steps in this type of coercive persuasion:[23] 1. People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations; 2. their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized; 3. they receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from the leader; 4. they get a new identity based on the group; 5. they are subject to entrapment and their access to information is severely controlled.[24]

    Definition of 'cult' according to secular opposition

    Secular cult opponents tend to define a "cult" as a religious or non-religious group that tends to manipulate, exploit, and control its members. Specific factors in cult behavior are said to include manipulative and authoritarian mind control over members, communal and totalistic organization, aggressive proselytizing, systematic programs of indoctrination, and perpetuation in middle-class communities.[25]

    While acknowledging the issue of multiple definitions of "cult",[26] Michael Langone states that "Cults are groups that often exploit members psychologically and/or financially, typically by making members comply with leadership's demands through certain types of psychological manipulation, popularly called mind control, and through the inculcation of deep-seated anxious dependency on the group and its leaders."[27] A similar definition is given by Louis Jolyon West:

    "A cult is a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g. isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of [consequences of] leaving it, etc) designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community." [28]

    In each, the focus tends to be on the specific tactics of conversion, the negative impact on individual members, and the difficulty in leaving once indoctrination has occurred.[29]

    Christianity and definitions of "cults"

    Since at least the 1940s, the approach of orthodox, conservative, or fundamentalist Christians was to apply the meaning of cult such that it included those religious groups who used (possibly exclusively) non-standard translations of the Bible, put additional revelation on a similar or higher level than the Bible, or had beliefs and/or practices deviant from those of traditional Christianity.[30]

    Differing opinions of the various definitions

    According to professor Timothy Miller from the University of Kansas in his 2003 Religious Movements in the United States, during the controversies over the new religious groups in the 1960s, the term "cult" came to mean something sinister, generally used to describe a movement at least potentially destructive to its members or to society. But he argues that no one yet has been able to define a "cult" in a way that enables the term to identify only problematic groups. Miller asserts that the attributes of groups often referred to as cults (see cult checklist), as defined by cult opponents, can be found in groups that few would consider cultist, such as Catholic religious orders or many evangelical Protestant churches. Miller argues:

    If the term does not enable us to distinguish between a pathological group and a legitimate one, then it has no real value. It is the religious equivalent of the racial term for African Americans—it conveys disdain and prejudice without having any valuable content.[31]

    Due to the usually pejorative connotation of the word "cult," new religious movements (NRMs) and other purported cults often find the word highly offensive.[citation needed] Some purported cults have been known to insist that other similar groups are cults but that they themselves are not. On the other hand, some skeptics have questioned the distinction between a cult and a mainstream religion, saying that cults only differ from recognized religions in their history and the societal familiarity with recognized religions which makes them seem less controversial.

    Study of cults

    Among the experts studying cults and new religious movements are sociologists, religion scholars, psychologists, and psychiatrists. To an unusual extent for an academic/quasi-scientific field, however, nonacademics are involved in the study of and/or debates concerning cults, especially from the "anti-cult" point of view.[citation needed] These include investigative journalists and nonacademic book authors who have sometimes examined court records and studied the finances of groups, writers who once were members of purported cults, and professionals such as therapists who work with ex-members of groups referred to cults. Less widely known are the writings by members of organizations that have been labeled cults, defending their organizations and replying to critics.

    Nonacademics are sometimes published, or their writings cited, in the Cultic Studies Journal (CSJ), the journal of the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA), a group which criticizes perceived cultic behavior. Sociologist Janja Lalich began her work and conceptualized many of her ideas while an "anti-cult" activist writing for the "CSJ" years before obtaining academic standing, and incorporated her own experiences in a leftwing political group into her later work as a sociological theorist.

    The hundreds of books on specific groups by nonacademic comprise a large portion of the currently available published record on cults. The books by "anti-cult" critics run from memoirs by ex-members to detailed accounts of the history and alleged misdeeds of a given group written from either a tabloid journalist, investigative journalist, or popular historian perspective.

    Journalists Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman together wrote the book Snapping, which set forth speculations on the nature of mind control that have received mixed reviews from psychologists. Others mentioned in this article include Tim Wohlforth (co-author of On the Edge and a former follower of British Trotskyist Gerry Healy); Carol Giambalvo, a former est member; activist and consultant Rick Ross; and mental health counselor Steven Hassan, a former Unification Church member and author of the book Combatting Cult Mind Control, who, like Ross, runs a business specializing in servicing people involved with cults or their family members.[27][28] Another example is the work of journalist/activist Chip Berlet, responsible for much of the work on "political cults" which exists today. Current members of the Hare Krishna movement as well as several former leaders of the Worldwide Church of God also have written with critical insight on "cult" issues, using terminologies and framings somewhat different from those of secular experts. Members of the Unification Church have produced books and articles that argue the case against excessive reactions to new religious movements, including their own.

    Within this larger community of discourse, the debates about "cultism" and specific groups are generally more polarized than among scholars who study new religious movements, although there are heated disagreements among scholars as well. What follows is a summary of that portion of the intellectual debate conducted primarily from inside the universities:

    Cults, NRMs, and the sociology and psychology of religion

    Due to popular connotations of the term "cult," many academic researchers of religion and sociology prefer to use the term new religious movement (NRM) in their research. However, some researchers have criticized the newer phrase on the ground that some religious movements are "new" without being cults, and have expanded the definition of cult to non-religious groups. Furthermore, some religious groups commonly regarded as cults are no longer "new"; for instance, Scientology and the Unification Church are both over 50 years old, while the Hare Krishna came out of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, a religious tradition that is approximately 500 years old.

    Some mental health professionals use the term cult generally for groups that practice physical or mental abuse. Others prefer more descriptive terminology such as abusive cult or destructive cult, while noting that many groups meet the other criteria without such abuse. A related issue is determining what is abuse, when few members (as opposed to some ex-members) would agree that they have suffered abuse. Other researchers like David V. Barrett hold the view that classifying a religious movement as a cult is generally used as a subjective and negative label and has no added value; instead, he argues that one should investigate the beliefs and practices of the religious movement.[32]

    According to the Dutch religious scholar Wouter Hanegraaff, another problem with writing about cults comes about because they generally hold belief systems that give answers to questions about the meaning of life and morality. This makes it difficult not to write in biased terms about a certain group, because writers are rarely neutral about these questions. Some admit this, and try to diffuse the problem by stating their personal sympathies openly.

    In the sociology of religion, the term cult is part of the subdivision of religious groups: sects, cults, denominations, and ecclesias. The sociologists Rodney Stark and William S. Bainbridge define cults in their book, "Theory of Religion" and subsequent works, as a "deviant religious organization with novel beliefs and practices", that is, as new religious movements that (unlike sects) have not separated from another religious organization. Cults, in this sense, may or may not be dangerous, abusive, etc. By this broad definition, most of the groups which have been popularly labeled cults fit this value-neutral definition.

    Development of groups characterized as cults

    Cults based on charismatic leadership often follow the routinization of charisma, as described by the German sociologist Max Weber. In their book Theory of Religion, Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge propose that the formation of cults can be explained through a combination of four models:

    • The psycho-pathological model - the cult founder suffers from psychological problems; they develop the cult in order to resolve these problems for themselves, as a form of self-therapy
    • The entrepreneurial model - the cult founder acts like an entrepreneur, trying to develop a religion which they think will be most attractive to potential recruits, often based on their experiences from previous cults or other religious groups they have belonged to
    • The social model - the cult is formed through a social implosion, in which cult members dramatically reduce the intensity of their emotional bonds with non-cult members, and dramatically increase the intensity of those bonds with fellow cult members - this emotionally intense situation naturally encourages the formation of a shared belief system and rituals
    • The normal revelations model - the cult is formed when the founder chooses to interpret ordinary natural phenomena as supernatural, such as by ascribing his or her own creativity in inventing the cult to that of the deity.


    Leadership

    See also Role of charismatic figures in the development of religions

    According to Dr. Eileen Barker, new religions are in most cases started by charismatic but unpredictable leaders. According to Mikael Rothstein, there is often little access to plain facts about either historical or contemporary religious leaders to compare with the abundance of legends, myths, and theological elaborations. According to Rothstein, most members of new religious movements have little chance to meet the Master (leader) except as a member of a larger audience.

    Twentieth Century examples of Cult Religious leaders include Josemaría Escrivá founder of the Catholic Organisation, Opus Dei.


    Theories about joining cults

    Michael Langone gives three different models regarding joining a cult. Under the "deliberative model," people are said to join cults primarily because of how they view a particular group. Langone notes that this view is most favored among sociologists and religious scholars. Under the "psychodynamic model," popular with some mental health professionals, individuals choose to join for fulfillment of subconscious psychological needs. Finally, the "thought reform model" posits that people join not because of their own psychological needs, but because of the group's influence through forms of psychological manipulation. Langone states that those mental health experts who have more direct experience with large number of cultists tend to favor this latter view.[33]


    According to Gallanter,[34] typical reasons why people join cults include a search for community and a spiritual quest. Stark and Bainbridge, in discussing the process by which individuals join new religious groups, have questioned the utility of the concept of conversion, suggesting that affiliation is a more useful concept.[35]

    Relationships with the "outside world"

    Barker wrote that peripheral members may help to lessen the tension between some groups and the outside world. 27 Where members live in intentional communities, custody disputes (if one parent leaves and one stays) may be another source of confrontation between the cult and the outside world.

    A cult need not necessarily operate outside of mainstream society to engage in 'cult' behavior. Any demanded belief, expected to be held by members of the group, religion or organization, which contradicts the articles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights may find itself being described as a 'cult'. This is now a problem for mainstream religions in secular western democracies which hold values and maintain membership practices that are contrary to democratic secular values and laws. e.g. Islam and the practice of women covering themselves in public, ordination being restricted to men in the Catholic church and the traditional religious condemnation of homosexuality. These religious contraventions of human rights are becoming less tolerated and are more and more being acknowledged as 'cult' behaviors.


    Reactions to social out-groups

    One issue in the study of cults relates to people's reactions to groups identified as some other form of social outcast or opposition group. A new study by Princeton University psychology researchers Lasana Harris and Susan Fiske shows that when viewing photographs of social out-groups, people respond to them with disgust, not a feeling of fellow humanity. The findings are reported in the article "Dehumanizing the Lowest of the Low: Neuro-imaging responses to Extreme Outgroups" in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science (previously the American Psychological Society).[36]

    According to this research, social out-groups are perceived as unable to experience complex human emotions, share in-group beliefs, or act according to societal norms, moral rules, and values. The authors describe this as "extreme discrimination revealing the worst kind of prejudice: excluding out-groups from full humanity." Their study provides evidence that while individuals may consciously see members of social out-groups as people, the brain processes social out-groups as something less than human, whether we are aware of it or not. According to the authors, brain imaging provides a more accurate depiction of this prejudice than the verbal reporting usually used in research studies.

    Genuine concerns and exaggerations about "cults"

    Some critics of media sensationalism argue that the stigma surrounding the classification of a group as a cult results largely from exaggerated portrayals of weirdness in media stories. The narratives of ill effects include perceived threats presented by a cult to its members, and risks to the physical safety of its members and to their mental and spiritual growth.

    Anti-cultists in the 1970s and 1980s made heavy accusations regarding the harm and danger of cults for members, their families, and societies. The debate at that time was intense and was sometimes called the cult debate or cult wars.[citation needed]

    Much of the action taken against cults has been in reaction to the real or perceived harm experienced by some members.

    Documented crimes

    Brochure of the Peoples Temple, portraying its founder Jim Jones as the loving father of the "Rainbow Family".
    Enlarge
    Brochure of the Peoples Temple, portraying its founder Jim Jones as the loving father of the "Rainbow Family".

    Certain groups that have been characterized as cults, such as Heaven's Gate, Ordre du Temple Solaire, Aum Shinrikyo, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God in Uganda, the Church of the Lamb of God of Ervil LeBaron, and the Peoples Temple have posed or are seen as potentially posing a threat to the well-being and lives of their own members and to society in general. These organizations are often referred to as doomsday cults or destructive cults by the media. According to John R. Hall, a professor in sociology at the University of California-Davis and Philip Schuyler, the Peoples Temple is still seen by some as the cultus classicus[37],,[38] though it did not belong to the set of groups that triggered the cult controversy in United States in the 1970s. Its mass suicide of over 900 members on November 18, 1978 led to increased concern about cults. Other groups include the Colonia Dignidad cult (a German group settled in Chile) that served as a torture center for the Chilean government during the Pinochet dictatorship.

    In 1984, a bioterrorist attack involving salmonella typhimurium contamination in the salad bars of 10 restaurants in The Dalles, Oregon was traced to the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh/Osho group.[39][40] The attack sickened about 751 people and hospitalized forty-five, although none died. It was the first known bio-terrorist attack of the 20th century in the United States, and is still known as the largest germ warfare attack in U.S. history. Eventually Sheela and Ma Anand Puja, one of Sheela's close associates, confessed to the attack as well as to attempted poisonings of county officials. The BW incident is used by the Homeland Defense Business Unit in Biological Incidents Operations training for Law Enforcement agencies.[29]PDF (934 KiB)

    The Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 was carried out by members of Aum Shinrikyo, a religious group founded in 1984 by Shoko Asahara. Aum Shinrikyo had a laboratory in 1990 where they cultured and experimented with botulin toxin, anthrax, cholera and Q fever. In 1993 they traveled to Africa to learn about and bring back samples of the Ebola virus.[30]

    Warren Jeffs, of Hildale, Utah, the polygamist sect leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is currently charged with two counts of rape as an accomplice in the spiritual marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin in 2001. Jeffs also faces felony sex charges in Arizona for his alleged role in two underage marriages, and was under federal indictment for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution as of March 2007.[31]

    Edward Morrissey, husband of Rev. Mary Manin Morrissey, in 2005 pled guilty to money laundering and using Living Enrichment Center church money for the personal expenses of himself and his wife. Edward Morrissey spent two years in federal prison.[41][42][43]

    Prevalence of doomsday or destructive cults

    It has been noted that despite the emphasis on "doomsday cults" by the media, the number of groups in this category is approximately ten, compared with the tens of thousands of new religious movements which are estimated to exist.[44] (including groups that are psychologically destructive but not extremely violent or doomsday-oriented).

    Of the groups that have been characterized as cults in the United States alone, only a hundred or so have ever become notorious for alleged misdeeds either in the national media or in local media. Some writers have argued that the disproportionate focus on these groups gives the public an inaccurate perception of new religious groups generally.[citation needed]

    Potential harm to members

    In the opinion of Benjamin Zablocki, a professor of Sociology at Rutgers University, groups that have been characterized as cults are at high risk of becoming abusive to members. He states that this is in part due to members' adulation of charismatic leaders contributing to the leaders becoming corrupted by power. Zablocki defines a cult here as an ideological organization held together by charismatic relationships and that demands total commitment.[45]

    There is no reliable, generally accepted way to determine which groups will harm their members. In an attempt to predict the probability of harm, cult checklists have been created, primarily by anti-cultists, for this purpose.[citation needed] According to critics of these checklists, they are popular but not scientific.

    According to Barrett, the most common accusation made against groups referred to as cults is sexual abuse. See some allegations made by former members. According to Kranenborg, some groups are risky when they advise their members not to use regular medical care.[46] Barker, Barrett, and Steven Hassan all advise seeking information from various sources about a certain group before getting deeply involved, though these three differ in the urgency they suggest.

    Other controversial groups

    Other groups, while not universally condemned, remain suspect to the general public; this is the case with Scientology and to a lesser extent, the Unification Church and the Hare Krishnas,Opus Dei and The Exclusive Bretheren. A problem in casually examining such high-profile groups is to distinguish between a group's public image (which may have become fixed decades earlier) and the group's current practices. This is often a focus for empirical studies by social scientists. These issues arise especially for groups whose founders have died or that have splintered, or those with foreign origins gradually integrating themselves into the culture of a new country.

    Non-religious groups characterized as cults

    According to the views of what some scholars call the "Anti-Cult Movement," although the majority of groups described as "cults" are religious in nature, a significant number are non-religious. These may include political, psychotherapeutic or marketing oriented cults organized in manners similar to the traditional religious cult. The term has also been applied to certain channeling, human-potential and self-improvement organizations, some of which do not define themselves as religious but are considered to have significant religious influences.

    Groups that have been labeled as "political cults," mostly far-left or far-right in their ideologies, have received some attention from journalists and scholars, though this usage is less common. Claims of cult-like practices exists for only about a dozen ideological cadre or racial combat organizations, though the allegation is sometimes made more freely.[47] Dennis Tourish and Tim Wohlforth are two prominent former members of Trotskyist sects who now attack their former organizations and the Trotskyist movement in general.[48]

    The concept of the "cult" is applied by analogy to refer to adulation of non-political leaders, and sometimes in the context of certain businessmen, management styles, and company work environments. Multi-level marketing has often been described as a cult due to the fact that a large part of the operation of a typical multi-level marketing consists of hiring and recruiting other people, selling motivational material, to the point that people involved in the business spend most of their time for the benefit of the organization. Consequently, some MLM companies like Amway have felt the need to specifically state that they are not cult-like in nature.[49]

    Another related term in politics is that of the personality cult. Although most groups labeled as political cults involve a "cult of personality," the latter concept is a broader one, having its origins in the excessive adulation said to have surrounded Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. It has also been applied to several other despotic heads of state.

    Stigmatization and discrimination

    Because of the increasingly pejorative use of the terms "cult" and "cult leader" over recent decades, many argue that these terms are to be avoided. A website affiliated with Adi Da Samraj sees the activities of cult opponents as the exercise of prejudice and discrimination against them, and regards the use of the words "cult" and "cult leader" as similar to political or racial epithets.[50]

    Amy Ryan has argued for the need to differentiate those groups that may be dangerous from groups that are more benign.[51] Ryan notes the sharp differences between definition from cult opponents, who tend to focus on negative characteristics, and those of sociologists, who aim to create definitions that are value-free. The movements themselves may have different definitions of religion as well. George Chryssides also cites a need to develop better definitions to allow for common ground in the debate.

    These definitions have political and ethical impact beyond just scholarly debate. In Defining Religion in American Law, Bruce J. Casino presents the issue as crucial to international human rights laws. Limiting the definition of religion may interfere with freedom of religion, while too broad a definition may give some dangerous or abusive groups "a limitless excuse for avoiding all unwanted legal obligations."[52]

    Some authors in the cult opposition dislike the word cult to the extent it implies that there is a continuum with a large gray area separating "cult" from "noncult" which they do not see.[53] Others authors, e.g. Steven Hassan, differentiate by using terms like "Destructive cult", or "Cult" (totalitarian type) vs. "benign cult".

    Leaving a "cult"

    There are at least three ways people leave a "cult." These are 1.) On their own decision (walkaways); 2.) Through expulsion (castaways); and 3.) By intervention (Exit counseling, deprogramming).[54],[55]

    In Bounded Choice (2004), Lalich describes a fourth way of leaving — rebelling against the group's majority or leader. This was based on her own experience in the Marxist-Leninist Democratic Workers Party, where the entire membership quit. However, rebellion is more often a combination of the walkaway and castaway patterns in that the rebellion may trigger the expulsion — essentially, the rebels provoke the leadership into being the agency of their break with an over-committed lifestyle. Tourish and Wohlforth (2000) and Dennis King (1989) provide what they consider several examples in the history of political groups that have been characterized as cults. The 'rebellion' response in such groups appears to follow a longstanding behavior pattern among left wing political sects which began long before the emergence of the contemporary political cult.

    Most authors agree that some people experience problems after leaving a cult. These include negative reactions in the individual leaving the group as well as negative responses from the group such as shunning. There are disagreements regarding the frequency of such problems, however, and regarding the cause.

    According to Barker (1989), the greatest worry about potential harm concerns the central and most dedicated followers of a new religious movement (NRM). Barker mentions that some former members may not take new initiatives for quite a long time after disaffiliation from the NRM. This generally does not concern the many superficial, short-lived, or peripheral supporters of a NRM.

    Exit Counselor Carol Giambalvo believes most people leaving a cult have associated psychological problems, such as feelings of guilt or shame, depression, feeling of inadequacy, or fear, that are independent of their manner of leaving the cult. Feelings of guilt, shame, or anger are by her observation worst with castaways, but walkaways can also have similar problems. She says people who had interventions or a rehabilitation therapy do have similar problems but are usually better prepared to deal with them.[56]

    Sociologists Bromley and Hadden note a lack of empirical support for alleged consequences of having been a member of a cult or sect, and substantial empirical evidence against it. These include the fact that the overwhelming proportion of people who get involved in NRMs leave, most short of two years; the overwhelming proportion of people who leave of their own volition; and that two-thirds (67%) felt "wiser for the experience."[57]

    Popular authors Conway and Siegelman conducted a survey and published it in the book Snapping regarding after-cult effects and deprogramming and concluded that people deprogrammed had fewer problems than people not deprogrammed. The BBC writes that in a survey done by Jill Mytton on 200 former cult members most of them reported problems adjusting to society and about a third would benefit from some counseling.[58]

    Burks (2002), in a study comparing Group Psychological Abuse Scale (GPA) and Neurological Impairment Scale (NIS) scores in 132 former members of cults and cultic relationships, found a positive correlation between intensity of thought reform environment as measured by the GPA and cognitive impairment as measured by the NIS. Additional findings were a reduced earning potential in view of the education level that corroborates earlier studies of cult critics (Martin 1993; Singer & Ofshe, 1990; West & Martin, 1994) and significant levels of depression and dissociation agreeing with Conway & Siegelman, (1982), Lewis & Bromley, (1987) and Martin, et al. (1992).[59]

    According to Barret, in many cases the problems do not happen while in a movement, but when leaving, which can be difficult for some members and may include psychological trauma. Reasons for this trauma may include: conditioning by the religious movement; avoidance of uncertainties about life and its meaning; having had powerful religious experiences; love for the founder of the religion; emotional investment; fear of losing salvation; bonding with other members; anticipation of the realization that time, money, and efforts donated to the group were a waste; and the new freedom with its corresponding responsibilities, especially for people who lived in a community. Those reasons may prevent a member from leaving even if the member realizes that some things in the NRM are wrong. According to Kranenborg, in some religious groups, members have all their social contacts within the group, which makes disaffection and disaffiliation very traumatic.[60]

    According to F. Derks and J. van der Lans, there is no uniform post-cult trauma. While psychological and social problems upon resignation are not uncommon, their character and intensity are greatly dependent on the personal history and on the traits of the ex-member, and on the reasons for and way of resignation.[61]

    Criticism by former members of purported cults

    The role of former members in the controversy surrounding cults has been widely studied by social scientists. Former members in some cases become public opponents against their former group. The former members' motivations, the roles they play in the anti-cult movement, the validity of their testimony, and the kinds of narratives they construct, are controversial with some scholars who suspect that at least some of the narratives are colored by a need of self-justification, seeking to reconstruct their own past and to excuse their former affiliations, while blaming those who were formerly their closest associates,[62] and that hostile ex-members would invariably shade the truth and blow out of proportion minor incidents, turning them into major incidents.[63] Other scholars conclude that testimonies of former members are at least as accurate as testimonies of current members.[citation needed]

    Scholars that challenge the validity of critical former members' testimonies as the basis for studying a religious group include David G. Bromley, Anson Shupe, Brian R. Wilson, and Lonnie Kliever. Bromley and Shupe, who studied the social influences on such testimonies, assert that the apostate in his current role is likely to present a caricature of his former group and that the stories of critical ex-members who defect from groups that are subversive (defined as groups with few allies and many opponents) tend to have the form of "captivity narratives" (i.e. the narratives depict the stay in the group as involuntary). Wilson introduces the atrocity story that is rehearsed by the apostate to explain how, by manipulation, coercion, or deceit, he was recruited to a group that he now condemns. Introvigne found in his study of the New Acropolis in France, that public negative testimonies and attitudes were only voiced by a minority of the ex-members, who he describes as becoming "professional enemies" of the group they leave. Kliever, when asked by the Church of Scientology to give his opinion on the reliability of apostate accounts of their former religious beliefs and practices, writes that these dedicated opponents present a distorted view of the new religions, and cannot be regarded as reliable informants by responsible journalists, scholars, or jurists. He claims that the reason for the lack of reliability of apostates is due to the traumatic nature of disaffiliation that he compares to a divorce and also due the influence of the anti-cult movement even on those apostates who were not deprogrammed or received exit counseling. Scholars and psychologists who tend to side more with critical former members include David C. Lane, Louis Jolyon West, Margaret Singer, Stephen A. Kent, Benjamin Beith-Hallahmi and Benjamin Zablocki. Zablocki performed an empirical study that showed that the reliability of former members is equal to that of stayers in one particular group. Philip Lucas found the same empirical results.

    According to Lewis F. Carter, the reliability and validity of the testimonies of believers are influenced by the tendency to justify affiliation with the group, whereas the testimonies of former members and apostates are influenced by a variety of factors.[64] Besides, the interpretative frame of members tends to change strongly upon conversion and disaffection and hence may strongly influence their narratives. Carter affirms that the degree of knowledge of different (ex-)members about their (former) group is highly diverse, especially in hierarchically organized groups. Using his experience at Rajneeshpuram (the intentional community of the followers of Rajneesh) as an example, he claims that the social influence exerted by the group may influence the accounts of ethnographers and of participant observers.[65] He proposes a method he calls triangulation as the best method to study groups, by utilizing three accounts: those of believers, apostates, and ethnographers. Carter asserts that such methodology is difficult to put into practice.[66] Daniel Carson Johnson[67] writes that even the triangulation method rarely succeeds in making assertions with certitude.[68]

    James T. Richardson contends that there are a large number of cults, and a tendency among scholars to make unjustified generalizations about them based on a select sample of observations of life in such group