FREE ESSAY ON CULTS

CULTS

On November 18, 1978, in a cleared-out patch of the Guyanese jungle, Reverend Jim Jones
ordered the 911 members of his flock to kill themselves by drinking a cyanide potion, and
they did. It seems cultists were brainwashed by this megalomaniac Jones, who had named
their jungle village after himself and held them as virtual slaves, if not living
zombies. Jones himself was found dead. He'd shot himself in the head, or someone else had
shot him. Is it plausible that more than nine hundred people took their own lives
willingly, simply because he told them to? 
This paper will examine aspects of certain religious groups around the world that have
shocked us with similar types of behavior. Most of these groups have been categorized
into what we refer to as cults. While most of these new religious groups are extremely
passive in their methodology, it is my objective to look at those that have gone outside
the boundaries of our norms and done such things as mass suicide and acts of terrorism. I
will try to understand how the leaders of these groups are able to persuade members to
give up all of their possessions and in some cases their lives. What causes people to
remove themselves from their jobs, and families? 
A cult is any group of people who surround themselves around a strong authority figure.
Cults, like many other groups, attempt to expand their influence for the purposes of
power or money. However, to achieve these ends, destructive cults employ a potent mixture
of influence and deception over members and new recruits. Using methods such as
brainwashing, thought reform, and mind control. A successful conversion into a
destructive cult removes a person's former identity and replaces it with a new one. This
is where the new member accepts all of the beliefs of his new group and a new identity is
created. However once a member of the group, any deviation from the cult leader's
teachings is strictly forbidden. Individuality is suppressed, and subject to fear and
suspicion of everyone around in the group.
What could cause people to join such groups when it is common knowledge that these groups
are known to go against the norms of our society? Many of those who study these groups
say that people tend to be more susceptible to manipulation in times of major change and
crisis. During the 1960s there was an explosion of these new religious groups such as the
Hare Krishna and Transcendental Meditation. A decade later, the human potential movement
emerged, teaching self-awareness and consciousness expansion. Groups with self-styled s
like Charles Manson, David Koresh, and Marshall Applewhite have flourished, teaching
impending doom, using mixtures from Christianity, millennialism and even science fiction.

Most of those who join these groups, do not join them with the intention of becoming a
cultist, they are usually seeking a new religious group, or a self-help group, looking
for some improvement in their lives. It is the group that they join that play on the
individual's insecurities and giving them some sense of order and a reason for their
existence in the world.
There have been many religious groups that have caught the medias attention with their
deviant behavior such as the members of Jonestown. Here are some other examples that will
illustrate the complete dominance that the leaders were able to hold over the members of
the cult.
David Koresh's Religious group, known as the Davidian is one of the more familiar cuts
during the past decade. On February 28, 1993, Storm Troopers of the ATF tried to enter
the Branch Davidian compound in the outskirts of Waco, Texas, where David Koresh and his
followers had set up their haven. The compound was stockpiled with weapons that were to
be used for a holy war that the had claimed would be coming soon. David and his followers
vowed there would be no surrender. For 51 days there was a standoff between the cult, and
the ATF. The doomsday prophet promised to bring forth an apocalypse for all those with
him in the compound. When the ordeal over 90 people were dead. Many of the survivors
blame the U.S government for their attack on the compound and have since launched a
million dollar lawsuit.
Marshall Applewhite believed that a UFO would come to the planet and pick up him and his
followers. When the ship did not arrive when expected he and 39 of his followers
committed suicide with the cult belief that they would rise to meet a space ship in the
sky How could 39 intelligent people be so misled by a confused cult leader predictions
seemed destined to never turn out? The group known as the Heaven Gaters died in three
shifts over a three-day period. 15 cultists died the first day, 15 the second and the
remaining nine the third day. As one set of cultist ingested the poison, a lethal dose of
Phenobarbital mixed in with pudding and/or applesauce and chased with a shot of vodka,
they would lie down and another cultist would use a plastic bag to speed up the dying. A
frighteningly anal-retentive mass suicide, the cultist would clean up after each round of
killing. Before the last two killed themselves, they took out the trash leaving the
rented mansion in perfect order. Wanting to be helpful even after dead, all bodies had
some sort of identification. Strangely, though, they also had five-dollar bill and change
in their pockets and small suitcases neatly tucked under the cots and beds. Applewhite
was not only able to convince his members that suicide was their only option, before this
he had all of the men castrate themselves, in order to suppress their sexual desires.
Illustrating the complete control he had over his followers.
Charles Manson, the son of a teenage, bisexual, alcoholic, prostitute was the poster-boy
of institutional life. Before he was thirty-five, he had spent more than half of his life
incarcerated During the late 1960's he built himself a harem of young women by praying on
the outcasts of society. At its highest level his cult had over 30 young women who truly
believed that he was god. With an odd interpretation of the Beatles' song Helter Skelter
Charles believed that a war of the races was coming in which the blacks would win.
However once this war was over the blacks would need someone to show them what to do, and
Charles would be the true leader of the new world. During his reign Charles had his
members commit nine murders. Who's brutality still shock us today? Even during his trial
members were outside of the courthouse carving swastikas in their foreheads, in order to
mimic their leader. 
The Order of the Solar Temple is the closest example that I have been able to find. 
This group came to light on October 5, 1994, when 53 members committed murder-suicide
simultaneously in Switzerland and Canada. The two known leaders of the group, Luc Jouret,
a Doctor, and Joseph di Mambro, a wealthy businessman, were among the dead in
Switzerland. Investigators have been trying to find out who took over from the Jouret and
Di Mambro. French police say the new leader could be Michel Tabachnika, a Swiss orchestra
conductor. The conductor has denied press reports that he is a cult member, however, his
wife died in the 1994 murder-suicide ritual in the Swiss village of Cheiry. 
The cult seems to give great importance to the sun. Their fiery ritual murder-suicides
are meant to take members of the sect to a new world on the star Sirius. To assist with
the trip, several of the victims, including some children, are shot in the head,
asphyxiated with black plastic bags and/or poisoned. Luc and Joseph wrote, in a letter
delivered after their deaths that they were leaving this earth to find a new dimension of
truth and absolution, far from the hypocrisies of this world
A second mass suicide ritual occurred about a week before Christmas in 1995. On December
23, on a remote plateau of the French Alps police found 16 charred bodies arranged in a
star formation with their feet pointing to the ashes of a fire. Like the rituals of 1994,
they all died by stabbing, asphyxiation, shooting and/or poisoning. Their bodies were
burned to a crisp as part of a cleansing ritual. 
A week before discovering the bodies, Swiss and French authorities suspected the worst
when the 16 cult members disappeared from their homes. Some left behind handwritten notes
expressing their intentions of committing mass suicide. One of the notes stated: Death
does not exist, it is pure illusion. May we, in our inner life, find each other forever.
Two of the dead were the wives and son of French ski champion and millionaire eye wear
manufacturer, Jean Vuarnet. 
In March 23, 1997 five more dead bodies were found in a burned house owned by Didier
Queze, a member of the Order, in St. Casimir, Quebec. The bodies of four cultists,
Didier, her husband and another couple, were found in a bed upstairs positioned in what
may have been intended to be the shape of the cross. The mother of Didier was found dead
on a sofa downstairs with a plastic bag over her head. Unlike earlier suicides in which
adults killed their children, the three teen-age children of the cultist couple were
spared
In all of these cases it has been shown that these people were clearly acting out of
their normal behavior. But how is it possible for these s to lead take such control over
there members. Many feel that the modern cults provide its participants with a level of
social support and acceptance that compares with what they may find in their nuclear
family. Cult activity, is often which is defined as direct contact with the divine,
generating a sense of belonging to something profound and of being a somebody. The modern
cult may be viewed as a group that gives its members an identity and a sense of meaning
in a world that has somehow failed to provide them these things.
With over 3000 destructive cults in the U.S. claiming over 4 million members, it seems
that there may only be more trouble to come with these new religious organizations
popping up almost out of nowhere. Their leaders seem to pray on the vulnerable and
lonely. Perhaps causing them to behave in a manner that would not be in their normal
behavior. 
I am not suggesting that all of these religious groups are threat to our society. In fact
I believe that these self-help groups are an asset to the people that they help. However
trouble arises when the leaders of these groups lose control, demanding complete and
total obedience. It is quite evident that one person's cult may be another person's
religion, and history has proven that yesterday's fringe group may be tomorrow's
mainstream religion. All of our popular religious groups once started as out as a cult at
one time or another.