Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
To combat destructive mind control, he has developed the Strategic Interaction Approach. This approach is designed to free the cult member from the group's control over his or her life." [97] New York Magazine characterized Hassan as, "one of the country's leading experts on cults and mind control."
The term cult has been criticized as lacking "scholarly rigour"; Benjamin E. Zeller stated "[l]abelling any group with which one disagrees and considers deviant as a cult may be a common occurrence, but it is not scholarship". [15] However, it has also been viewed as empowering for ex-members of groups that have experienced trauma. [15]
Cults are inherently ephemeral and loosely organized. [30] There is a major theme in many of the recent works that show the relationship between cults and mysticism. [30] Campbell highlights two major types of cults: one mystical and the other instrumental. This analysis can divide the cults into either occult or metaphysical assemblies.
The report included a list of purported cults based upon information which may have been provided by former members, the general information division of the French National Police (Renseignements généraux — the French secret police service) and cult-watching groups. [13]
The book analyzes these groups and methodologies from a scientific viewpoint, as well as providing first-person accounts of religious conversion, and in certain cases subsequent apostasy. [1] Galanter utilizes systems theory to illustrate how cult functions are similar to a social organism , with increasing conformity managed by the ...
Lenz, of "One Tree Hill" fame, spent 10 years in a religious cult she calls the "Big House Family." She considers her childhood with divorced parents a key motivator for why she sought out the ill ...
Cults range from the relatively benign to those that exercise extraordinary control over members' lives and use thought-reform processes to influence and control members. While the conduct of certain cults causes nonmembers to criticize them, the term cult is not in itself pejorative but simply descriptive.
In the twentieth century, concern for the rights and feelings of religious minorities led authors to most often invent fictional cults for their villains to be members of. [141] Fictional cults continue to be popular in film, television, and gaming in the same way, while some popular works treat new religious movements in a serious manner.