Word Cult Research Paper

Still, in our society, there are certain insane cults in the name of religion but they don’t have any importance in the society. So, these are considered as the non-religious cults that won’t give any positive impacts in the society. Now, here are mentioned the 10 non-religious cults that would help you to get familiar with the real facts:

Not all cults fit into the previously aforementioned definition but become more of the nuanced dysfunctional definition. The media thrives off of featured stories such as a cult in which a man was married to dozens of women and yielded hundreds of children. Others are more menacing with groups breaking into homes and murdering families while others seemingly feel so dedicated to their cause that they kill themselves for the cult. This is the extremism that certain cults establish, however, these dangerous groups often have warning signs or what Hume (1996) described as significant danger markers.

There is no exact, unified definition of a cult. Some people even believe that a cult isn’t a religious group. How I feel I could describe a cult is as follows. I feel a cult is negative for the outsiders and people that distance themselves from a cult after joining one for a while. But I feel that a cult is a very positive place for someone who is loyal and cooperative to the said cult. People change to the absolute extreme when joining/entering the cult. Any family member who is not part of the cult is to be banished from the Scientologist part of the family--never to be talked to again. If you’re a part of said cult, and you would like to not be part of the cult or any of cult activities, you are banished from any family members in the cult, and any friends in the cult. When you leave a cult, you are blackmailed to the point where some have left wherever they’re living at the time. They believe that they have to show how everyone is so happy. In a cult, they basically control every single thing they do, or that is how I feel as an outsider. Cults send members to recruit others, as said before, and the so-called recruiters are always so positive when talking about the cult they have joined and the cult they would like you you join. Once you join a cult, you are controlled to everything you do.

The United States has had its share of cults, religious, and non-religious alike. Behind all of the cults I will be talking about are charismatic baby boomers. David Koresh formed the Branch Davidians. Koresh was born in 1959, names Vernon Howell. He first became a member of the Church of the Seventh Day Adventists, but was later dismissed because of his fundamental views. Some of his radical views include that he thought he was a messiah and that women should be his spiritual wives. Located in Waco, Texas the Branch Davidians, believed that Koresh spoke the word of God, and that the end of the world would be in their lifetime. While the world didn’t come to an end, it did end for those in the cult. In March 1993 failed raid by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms lead to a 51-day siege of the compound that resulted in the death of 77 Branch Davidians including 20 children. Another baby boomer, Jim Jones founded the Peoples Temple. Jones’s propagandizes appealed to many African-Americans from the 1950s to the 1970s, because of his progressive views on racial equality. In 1977, the New West Magazine published an expose of Jim Jones and his cult that resulted in mass suicide with 900 members of the Peoples Temple drinking poison. Scientology was started in 1952 by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard.

“Did you know there are roughly five to seven million people who are in a cult or cult like group in America? As of July 31, 2013 there were an estimated 316,330,350 people in America alone." One way cults attract there members is by using psychological techniques to make young people in America want to join them in their holy journey. But are the leaders really insane? Some would argue yes others not so much, but how could someone who thought they knew everything there is to know about a book, written thousands of years ago, not be questioned on their sanity. Cults can affect many people as a society or individually, the effects cults have on certain people can be a great one due to they take away all your rights and give you certain rules to follow. The reason cults are shameful to society is because they control individuals and manipulate them into what they see as beneficial for a whole group not individually.

Cults use self-serving bias, conformity, and informational social influence to indoctrinate their members and manipulate them into achieving the goals of the leader.

In a country founded upon the concept of religious freedom, it is difficult to justify vilifying some groups while defending others. On the subject of radical cult identification, Natacha Tormey points out in her book, Cults - A Bloodstained History, that, "Cults can hide in many places. They are so adept at blending into society and masking their true colours that often their victims do not realize that they were even in a cult until they have escaped it." They then utilize this camouflage to try to obtain more power through tax exemptions and political sway. For example, the church of Scientology battled tooth and nail to be recognized as a religious organization by the Internal Revenue Service from the years 1967 all the way to 1993. In the end they succeeded in qualifying for tax exemption in 1993, greatly enhancing their financial

There is not a set, universal definition of a cult. When looking at multiple sources or even making a quick search on the internet, many contradictory statements and definitions are brought about, most of them carrying a negative connotation. Upon hearing the word “cult,” one tends to associate it with satanic rituals, black magic, murder, and many other dark, mysterious things. In its simplest form, a cult seems to be a group of people with a charismatic leader. However, this definition is not complete. The definition of a cult can be subdivided into two categories: the benign or positive cult, and the bad or destructive cult. In a benign cult, the leader will share leadership with other group members. The cult as a whole

Since from the beginning and as far as the eye can see, cults have been and will continue to be part of human life. These small religious groups can happen anywhere and have been the cause of much debate and interest. For humans have an innate need to know why things are the way they are. Cults for one have done some rather unmoral things that lead the people to ask, "Why did they do it?" The People 's Temple, Aum Shinrikyo, and Ku Klux Klan are extraordinary examples of wicked cults that begged the question "Why?"

Cults have been around in various degrees throughout human history. These generally begin in small groups of devotion, and while most of them stay within their small groups, others can manifest into larger religions. However, due to extremist behaviors, cults have a tendency to carry a negative connotation. A cult is defined by the Meriam-Webster dictionary as an unorthodox/spurious religion with great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work.

When we think of cults, we think of a charismatic group that differ from known beliefs. The characteristics of such cult groups include exhibiting strong cohesion, the support of the specific belief system they follow which appears strange to people who aren’t a part of this organization, the influences towards their behavior and recognizing leaders as being charismatic. Various cults have beliefs that could be considered a deranged disorder and many could also share a psychotic disorder. Cult members participate in violent actions based on a related belief including murder. Based on this, the courts decide if cult faith would represent religion or delusions. One example would be Charles Mason and his family who killed multiple people in an

Being self-conscious or persuadable is just a minor factor in the involvement to becoming a cult member. “Experts and former cult members have found evidence and have stated that people don't join cults just because they're unhappy or searching for something. While those may be factors, they insist that people are manipulated, pressured, and deceived into going into cults.”

An American sociologist, Howard P. Becker expanded the church sect typology, characterizing cults as “lacking organization and emphasizing personal beliefs” (Swatos). Over time, this interpretation was added to, emphasizing cults’ deviation from predominant religious groups who “derived their inspiration from outside of the predominant religious culture, leading to a higher degree of tension between the group and more mainstream culture”

There is no universally agreed definition of the word ‘cult’, it is only rarely used as a self-description and does not refer to any particular belief system. Since the 1920s, the word ‘cult’ has most commonly been used to designate a minority religious group whose beliefs and practices an outside observer views as dangerous or strange.

Encyclopaedia Britannica (2009) cautions that cult worship is so universal in religion that some historians of religion actually define religion as cult.