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From: JMS111@psuvm.psu.edu (Jenni Sheehey)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: cults
Message-ID: <Mar.6.00.19.11.1991.24841@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 6 Mar 91 05:19:16 GMT
Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu
Organization: Penn State University
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Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu

In article <Feb.26.04.28.29.1991.12765@athos.rutgers.edu>,
geoff@pmafire.inel.gov (Geoff Allen) says:
>
>Our Over-worked and Under-paid Moderator writes:
>
>>It's hard to be sure
>>whether the term "cult" as currently used is simply a general term of
>>disapproval, or whether it has a specific definition.
>
>True.  Unfortunately, it is a term that now carries with it a lot of
>excess baggage.  It's become a term that doesn't really mean anything.

A social psychology professor of mine and I had a discussion about that
once.  She said that there was actually some characteristics of cults
that were generally recognized by psychologists.  I don't remember what
all she said, but a couple of the characteristics stuck out in my
mind:
     1) isolation from previous friends, etc.
          - this includes family, friends, classmates, clergy, basically
          people in general.  This need not be permanent,  it may just
          be for an initiation period, (say a few weeks or so) but it
          generally involves complete isolation from non cult members.
        For those of you that hadn't noticed,  this lets out both the
          LDS and the Catholics, as far as I know.
     2) idolization/worship of some leading figure
          - This is a *living* figure, who is the head of the cult
        People have gotten on Catholics' cases about this, but we
          are talking about orders of magnitude of difference
          between the way Catholics treat the Pope, and they way,
          say, that cult members treated Jim Jones.
     3) surrendering of worldly possessions to the cult
          - This is not always the case, but when it is, it is not
          like tithing, it is like "transfer all of your assets to
          us and we'll see to your needs, as long as you work in the
          commune (or whatever)and don't need too much."
        People who had done this would probably not have net access...
          =)
There was more that she said, but I don't remember it all.  Suffice it
to say that I don't think that the term "cult" is accurately applied to any of
the groups represented on this newsgroup...  =)

/------------------------------------\             --Jenni
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