THE INDIAN HIGH SCHOOL,

DUBAI
SOCIOLOGY PROJECT
(2020-2021)

ARE CULTS INHERENTLY

DANGEROUS?

SARAH LOULAJ - 11 ARTS A

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First, I would like to thank God for giving me the blessings

and peace of mind I sought in the making of this project.

I would also like to thank my Sociology teacher Mrs. Mahima

Chopra for her valuable guidance, advice and suggestions
which proved very helpful in the completion of this project.

I also extend my thanks to our seniors who provided us with

their projects as a sample for reference and better
understanding of the work. It was an incredible valuable
resource.

Lastly, I’d like to thank my friends and family who provided

me with various suggestions when I sought their help and
contributed greatly in helping me with my work.

Name of student: Sarah Loulaj

Class: 11 Arts A
 BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that Sarah Loulaj of class 11 Arts A has

completed her Sociology Project under my supervision. She
has taken proper care and shown utmost sincerity in
completing it. I certify that this project is up to my supervision
and as per the guidelines issued by the CBSE.

Teacher in Charge: Mahima Chopra

Signature: _______________________
 CONTENTS

S.NO. TOPIC PAGE NO.

1. Research Question 1
2. Rationale 1
3. Introduction 2-6
4. Methodologies 7-11
5. Case Study & Analysis 12-24
6. Secondary Research & Analysis 25-33
7. Survey & Analysis 34-45
8. Conclusion 46-47
9. Bibliography 48-51
10. Appendix 52-58
RESEARCH QUESTION
ARE CULTS INHERENTLY DANGEROUS?

RATIONALE
As an avid reader and movie enthusiast, I came across the
term “cult” and “sect” quite often and noticed that they were
always portrayed to be the antagonists in the film. The
members in the cults were seen as deranged or volatile. Upon
a little research, I was shocked to find that cults exist to this
day. I wondered how these apparently evil institutions
continued in this era. It led me down a train of thought about
the true definition of a cult and its relation to “new religious
movements” which are popping up all over the place. This
thought led me to pick this as a research topic to try and
understand if cults are inherently harmful.

Additionally, I chose this topic because of the prevalence of

cults since time immemorial while still being a somewhat not
talked about subject. Do cults always have to be a danger to
society and the individuals? If it is proven to not be
dangerous, does it still qualify as a cult? To explore these
thoughts, I will be doing triangulation. The three
methodologies I will be using are survey, case study and
secondary research.

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INTRODUCTION
To explore the effects of cults, we first have to understand
what a cult or a sect is. Unfortunately, this is not easy to do
because in the social sciences, the term cult has become one
of the most controversial concepts since the latter part of the
twentieth century. The term was originally employed by
scholars of religion to signify a system of activities centering
on an object of worship, but the concept has been gradually
changed by sociologists to identify a particular residual type
of religious group that fell outside the boundaries of
recognized religious organization.

Eventually, the term cult was appropriated by opponents of

unconventional religions in order to label them as dangerous.
The mass media in modern nations have largely adopted and
disseminated these morally charged, negative definitions, and
thus pejorative notions of the term cult and of the many
groups to which it is uncritically attached have become
virtually universal among the general public. Many scholars
of contemporary religions, especially sociologists, have now
chosen to drop the term cult as a descriptor of a type of
religious group, concluding that it is a conceptually polluted
concept, and replaced it with a morally neutral term, such as
new religious movement or alternative religious group. Others
have argued that the term cult has a scientifically useful

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conceptual function and should be retained even though there
is not yet a social science consensus on its essential
definitional characteristics.
This is why the term “cult” now often carries derogatory
connotations. These derogatory connotations were furthered
by the ill portrayals of so-called “cults” in media. It is being
used as a subjective term in order to launch attacks against
certain social groups. Sociologists such as Amy Ryan have
argued that the term “cult” itself does not refer to socially
deviant groups and the sociological definition of cult is
inherently value-free; it is not negatively charged and
therefore, technically, should not be used in referring to only
negative groups.

Sociologists’ Views/Definitions of Cults

Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge distinguish cults as
religious novel ties that are not the product of schism from the
established religions within a particular host society. Cults
may originate in one of two ways: either from “importing”
their essential elements from an alien cultural tradition, or
through the religious innovations of charismatic leaders who
assert a new order of belief and practice that is substantially
independent of established religious traditions.
Both Emile Durkheim, in The Elementary Forms of
Religious Life (1915), and Max Weber, in The Sociology of
Religion (1922), employed a classical conception of cult as
designating a ritual system of worship activities. Durkheim
focused attention on what he saw as the essential function of

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cultic activity within a community which was to periodically
renew, through participation in sacred rites, a collective sense
of social unity and moral force around a set of shared values
that constitute the community itself.
Weber emphasized the rationalizing tendencies of cultic
organization over time, particularly through the emergence of
priestly roles to administer the system of religious practices
and doctrines centered on the worship of a god, gods or other
super natural entities. The rationalizing tendencies of religious
organization noted by Weber were further elaborated by
Ernst Troeltsch’s attempt to specify the characteristics of
Weber’s two types of religious community organization: the
church and the sect.
Howard Becker, in Systematic Sociology (1932), exchanged
the term cult for mysticism, resulting in an influential shift in
the sociological designation of cult as a particular type of
religious group rather than referring only to the structuring of
worship activities within all religions. Becker’s definition of a
cult included the characteristics of loosely structured, non-
demanding, non-exclusive associations between individuals in
urban settings who share interest in a limited set of esoteric
spiritual beliefs typically propounded by a charismatic but not
necessarily authoritarian teacher leader. Variations on the
defining characteristics of cults as a type of religious group
have subsequently proliferated.
The greatest stimulus to the study of groups identified as cults
occurred in the mid-1960s through mid-1970s. This was the
effect of certain elements within the hippie oriented youth

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counterculture (e.g., the Jesus Movement, the New Age
Movement, the Communitarian Movement, etc.) and
especially the increasing visibility and proselytizing activities
of foreign and non-Christian religious groups within western
nations generally and the US in particular (e.g., the
Unification Church, or ‘‘Moonies,’’ the Divine Light Mission,
the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ‘‘Hare
Krishnas,’’ etc.).
Although some sociologists argued that these contemporary,
radically different groups were best seen as extreme variations
of religious sects, most concluded that it was useful to expand
the cult concept in a way that would account for more
dynamic, structured, innovative, and purposive new religious
movements that seemed to be more than just dissenting
splinter groups from an already established religious tradition.

Sociological understanding of cults, however, has had little

impact on public perceptions. In reference to the usage of the
term cult by a layperson, religion scholar Megan Goodwin
defined the term as often being a shorthand for a "religion I
don't like." From the 1960s onwards, the apparent
proliferation of alien religious groups in western societies,
which were primarily successful in recruiting young people
coming from conventional backgrounds, was deeply
disturbing to many parents, mainstream Christian clergy, and
various secular groups. From this public consternation
emerged new, pejorative and non-scholarly definitions of
cults.

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For many in the Christian clergy, a cult essentially came to be
understood as any religious group that deviates from what are
defined as orthodox Christian beliefs and practices – a ‘fake’
religion that tempts people away from ‘true’ religion. Such
faith based, ethnocentric definitions considerably widen the
category of groups labeled as cults and result in the inclusion
of many non-violent groups as part of cults.

Opponents of cults began identifying cult characteristics

which notions of ‘brain washing’ or mind control tactics
employed as recruitment and retention devices; fraudulent
motives and totalitarian methods of charismatic leaders;
exploitation or abuse of duped or cowed members for the
benefit of leaders; secrecy and isolation from the outside
world; a potential if not an actual tendency toward the use of
violence; and so on. These notions are all still relevant today
in the common-sensical notion of cults. The popularity of
these notions can be credited heavily to mass media whether
through films, TV shows or heavy public coverage of tragic
cult-related incidents in the 70s like the Manson Family or
Jonestown.
Most sociologists of religion continue to advocate a more
detached, objective, and analytical understanding of cults and
their relationships to conditions in both mainstream religions
and society generally. Of the hundreds of groups that can
reliably be identified as cult movements, only a very small
fraction have or are likely to have violent confrontations with
outsiders. The term new religious movement (NRM) has been

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widely adopted as a substitute for cult by many sociologists in
order to neutralize the negative connotations that have
accumulated around the term cult.
If we start this research by looking at cults as a social
problem, then we are inherently giving into the common-
sense definition of cults as something harmful. In order to be
objective, I will be exploring the features of some prominent
cults throughout history, some of which are prevalent to this
day, and examine them as being harmful or not to the
individuals in the group and outside the group.
METHODOLOGIES
For this project, I will be doing triangulation. Triangulation
refers to the application and combination of several research
methods for a better understanding of the material. The three
methods I have chosen are case study, secondary research and
survey.

CASE STUDY

A case study is defined as a detailed and in-depth study of a

single case, involving an event, group, individual, or
organization. Case studies tend to be extremely intensive and
have to be looked into with a lot of detail. Case studies can be
produced by following a formal research method. These case
studies are likely to appear in formal research venues, as
journals and professional conferences, rather than in popular

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works. Case study research can mean single and multiple case
studies, can include quantitative evidence, relies on multiple
sources of evidence, and benefits from the prior development
of theoretical propositions. Case studies may involve both
qualitative and quantitative research methods.

Advantages
● Case studies allow a lot of detail to be collected that
would not normally be easily obtained by other research
designs.
● The ability to gather qualitative and quantitative data and
the comparative lack of expense compared with
attempting the same research with a large sample.
● The case study method puts data into a usable format for
those who read the data and note its outcome. The goal
of this method is to help the reader be able to identify
specific concepts to which they also relate.

Disadvantages
● One of the main criticisms is that the data collected
cannot necessarily be generalised to the wider
population. This leads to data being collected over

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 longitudinal case studies not always being relevant or
particularly useful.
● Every person has their own unconscious bias. Although
the case study method is designed to limit the influence
of this bias by collecting fact-based data, it is the
collector of the data who gets to define what is a “fact”
and what is not.

SECONDARY RESEARCH

Secondary research involves the summary, collation and/or

synthesis of existing research. Secondary research is
contrasted with primary research in that primary research
involves the generation of data, whereas secondary research
uses primary research sources as a source of data for analysis.
Common examples of secondary research include textbooks,
encyclopedias, news articles, review articles, and meta
analyses. When conducting secondary research, researchers
may draw data from published academic papers, government
documents, statistical databases, and historical records.

Advantages

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 ● As it is largely based on already existing data derived
from previous research, secondary research can be
conducted more quickly and at a lesser cost.
● Secondary data types are vast in their availability.
Looking for data online can be advantageous, but so can
visiting libraries for a librarian’s help in finding
associated data. This can be a great source for local
research that might otherwise escape you. It is an
unobtrusive means of analyzing interactions and provides
insight into complex models of human thought and
language use.
● The breadth of this research can be impressive, since
much is done by media companies and governments
whose have greater resources, and whose professional
expertise means they can parse the data better.

Disadvantages
● The data may be out of date or inaccurate. If using data
collected for different research purposes, it may not
cover those samples of the population researchers want
to examine, or not in sufficient detail.
● Administrative data, which is not originally collected for
research, may not be available in the usual research
formats or may be difficult to get access to.

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SURVEY

As a research method, a survey collects data from subjects

who respond to a series of questions about behaviors and
opinions, often in the form of a questionnaire. The survey is
one of the most widely used scientific research methods. The
standard survey format allows individuals a level of
anonymity in which they can express personal ideas.

Advantages

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 ● Can be administered remotely via online, mobile devices,
mail, email, kiosk, or telephone.
● Capable of collecting data from a large number of
respondents
● Numerous questions can be asked about a subject, giving
extensive flexibility in data analysis

Disadvantages
● Survey question answer options could lead to unclear
data because certain answer options may be interpreted
differently by respondents. For example, the answer
option “somewhat agree” may represent different things
to different subjects, and have its own meaning to each
individual respondent. ‘Yes’ or ‘no’ answer options can
also be problematic. Respondents may answer “no” if the
option “only once” is not available.
● Respondents may not be fully aware of their reasons for
any given answer because of lack of memory on the
subject, or even boredom.
CASE STUDY
Case Study #1 – The Peoples Temple
The Peoples Temple was a religious community led by Jim
Jones. Jones began the Peoples Temple informally in the
1950s as an independent congregation in Indianapolis. He was
inspired by the ideal of a just society that could overcome the
evils of racism and poverty. The beliefs of the Peoples

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Temple were left-wing and quite radical for their time; one of
the most important precepts of the Temple was the concept of
racial integration and service to disadvantaged people such as
the poor, sick, and homeless.

Jones’s “apostolic socialism” was influenced by the Marxist

“liberation theology” popular among Latin American clergy at
the time. He mixed social concerns with faith healing and an
enthusiastic worship style drawn from the black church. He
also invited members to live communally in an effort to
realize his utopian ideal. With the Peoples Temple, he ran a
number of shelters for the homeless, and also provided
services like a camp for disabled children, residential
treatment programs for the elderly, and homes for foster
children. Under Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple was run
essentially as a charitable organization, cooperating with other
charities and the state welfare system to provide needed
services.

However, in the 1970s, the Peoples Temple began to undergo

a shift. This shift was partially triggered by external pressures,
such as a growing interest in the movement and its activities
among journalists, law enforcement, and other members of
government. The organization also began to suffer internally,
as Jim Jones began experiencing signs of mental illness,
manifesting extreme paranoia. In 1974, he moved the Peoples
Temple to the more hospitable climate of Guyana, where he
established Jonestown, intending to create a community where

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people could live and raise their children in a friendly
environment.

In the late 1970s, strange reports about Jonestown began to

emerge. These reports included allegations that American
citizens were being held against their will in Guyana. This
resulted in the travelling of an investigative team to the
region, visiting Jonestown on 17 November 1978. At the time,
several residents of Jonestown expressed a desire to leave, and
as the group reached the airstrip and prepared for departure on
the afternoon of the 18th, they were gunned down by
members of the People’s Temple; the massacre was captured
on film by a journalist who was killed in the attack.

The same day as the murders at the airstrip, Jones told his
followers that soldiers would come for them and torture them.
He ordered everyone to gather in the main pavilion and
commit what he termed a “revolutionary act.” The youngest
members of the Peoples Temple were the first to die, as
parents and nurses used syringes to drop a potent mix of
cyanide, sedatives and powdered fruit juice into children’s
throats. Adults then lined up to drink the poison-laced
concoction of Kool-Aid while armed guards surrounded the
pavilion. This horrific event is the source of the phrase,
“drinking the Kool-Aid” which is used in relation to a person
who believes in a possibly doomed or dangerous idea because
of perceived potential high rewards

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Following the tragedy at Jonestown, the Peoples Temple was
identified as a “cult,” and Jones was depicted by the media as
the epitome of an evil cult leader. Although numerous
scholarly and popular studies of Jonestown have been written,
the effort to understand the group and the tragedy continues.

Analysis #1
The Peoples Temple did not start off as something sinister.
There was no inherently evil undertone to the group. If you
think about it, it actually started off as a force of good. Jim
Jones wanted to spread a message of Christianity combined
with communism and socialism with an emphasis on racial
equality. Only later did it transform into something horrific. In
the early stages of this new religious movement, the Peoples
Temple was in no way dangerous, either to the people in the
group or outside the group. At this time, they were not termed
as a cult simply due to the lack of media coverage. Once
media coverage increased, so did the external pressure. The
external pressures included more members wanting to join,
the mass media and the existing social institutions who
opposed new religious movements. As such, there was a
conflict between this movement and social institutions like
religion. This conflict and controversy have been noted as an
almost customary effect of quasi-religious movements.
Aside from the external pressure, there was also internal
pressures. There was pressure from some of the members who
wanted to leave when Jim Jones moved them to Jonestown.
There was a greater more pressing issue; Jones’ mental state.

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He was increasingly showing signs of mental illness and
paranoia. In the end, it can be assumed that this is when the
objectives of the Peoples Temple shifted. When the external
and internal pressures clashed, the result was the Jonestown
Massacre which finally earned the Peoples Temple the title of
“cult”.

Note that this term only came around once the group got
enough media coverage and they committed an act of atrocity.
Such is the power of public perception that the meaning of the
word cult has been permanently imbued with negative
connotations. Sociologists such as Eileen Barker has noted
that there are various psychological and sociological factors
which led to the events at Jonestown which could have
occurred even if the group wasn’t a religious movement. It
was reliant on factors such as Jones’ character, charisma,
contact with the outside world, etc. Even still, according to
Durkheim’s theories of suicide and collective effervescence,
the mass suicide was deliberately altruistic. The Peoples
Temple could be sociologically defined as a cult from its
origins due to its unusual ideological aspects, charismatic
leader and ritual behaviours; it was not termed a cult
sociologically due to the dangerous, harmful and horrific
incidents which took place. However, the Peoples Temple did
turn out to be dangerous not only to its own members
personally, but also as a public issue due to the lives lost
amongst those who tried to intervene and help.

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Case Study #2 – Heaven’s Gate
Heaven’s Gate was a religious group founded in the United
States on the basis of a belief in unidentified flying objects.
Under a variety of names over the years, including Human

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Individual Metamorphosis, Bo and Peep, and Total
Overcomers Anonymous, the group advocated extreme self-
renunciation to the point of castration. It burst into public
consciousness following the suicide of 39 of its members in a
suburb of San Diego, California, in March 1997.

Founders Marshall H. Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles met in

1972 and soon became convinced that they were the two
“endtime” witnesses mentioned in Revelation 11 (a chapter in
the New Testament which mentions two witnesses who will
be given extraordinary powers 3 ½ years before the return of
Christ). In 1975 they held gatherings in California and Oregon
that attracted their initial followers. Those who attached
themselves to “The Two” dropped out of society and prepared
for the “transition” to a new life on a spaceship.

When the expected transition did not occur, the group settled
in Texas and lived a quiet communal existence practicing
disciplines that they believed would prepare them for the
eventual movement to a “higher level” of existence. They had
few contacts with outsiders until 1994, when their expectation
of the imminent transition was again heightened, and they
began a new round of proselytization. They also divested
themselves of most of their possessions and began a
pilgrimage that led them to California.

Settling in the San Diego area in 1996, they supported

themselves by creating sites on the World Wide Web for

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Internet users and established their own Web site to offer
readers a gate to heaven (hence the name by which they
would become known). Early in 1997 a rumour circulated
among the New Age community that an artificial object, or
spaceship, was following the recently discovered Comet Hale-
Bopp, which would approach close to the Earth around the
time of the spring equinox. As the comet approached, the
Heaven’s Gate group, which had shrunk to only 39 members,
took poison in three waves of 15, 15, and 9 in the belief that
the spaceship would arrive to take them to a better place. Prior
to the event, the members of the group made a video
explaining their individual reasons for their chosen path.

Analysis #2
Similar to the Peoples Temple, Heaven’s Gate found its roots
in Christianity. The origins of Heaven’s Gate can perhaps be
understood better with a psychological analysis of founders
Nettles and Applewhite or Ti and Do as they liked to be
known. Applewhite was receiving psychiatric treatment at a
hospital where Nettles was the nurse. Heaven’s Gate was
initially dismissed as a UFO cult by the media – yet they
attracted interested members. Thus, it had coercive powers.

From a sociological point of view, Heaven’s Gate does

qualify to be characterized as a cult owing to its theory of the
“endtime”, its charismatic leaders, ritualistic behaviours and
influence. As such, examples like that of Heaven’s Gate and

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mass suicide is used to perpetually define the word “cult”
mainly by cult opponents.

Benjamin Zeller, a professor of religion, notes the similarities

of Heaven’s Gate to other religions; belief in a heavenly
father, belief in the importance of the soul over the body,
belief that they were engaged in the eternal fight of good
versus evil, belief in salvation, in an afterlife somewhere up
there and belief in end times. Yet, it was not considered a
religion even before the mass suicide. It was always
considered a cult. This could partly be due to the belief within
the group that heaven was a literal place that could be reached
with a spaceship, but it is also due to the fact that powerful
social institutions which have been existing for a long, long
time were not going to accept a new religion. Thus, they
termed Heaven’s Gate a cult. Perhaps rightfully so but owing
to the wrong reasons.

Case Study #3 – The Church of Scientology

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Scientology, international movement that emerged in the
1950s in response to the thought of L. Ron Hubbard, a writer
who introduced his ideas to the general public in Dianetics:
The Modern Science of Mental Health (1950). Hubbard’s
stated goal was to analyze humankind’s mental aberrations
and to offer a means for overcoming them. He eventually
moved away from Dianetics’ focus on the mind to a more
religious approach to the human condition, which he called
Scientology. The Church of Scientology was founded in 1954.

The shift from Dianetics to Scientology included a focus on

humans as immortal souls (thetans, in Scientology
terminology) that are trapped within multiple bodies through
various lifetimes. After purging the reactive mind of past
trauma scars through the auditing process, an individual can
become “clear”—a concept from Dianetics that represents a
major goal in Scientology. Those who go “clear” are believed
to reach a higher level of ethical and moral standards, greater
creativity and control over their environment and even less
susceptibility to disease.

Individual Scientology churches and missions, known as

“orgs,” began using Scientology materials to teach the faith’s
basic tenets and conduct auditing procedures in order to help
members reach the “clear” state. Each local org was set up to
process clients, including discussing their needs,
recommending a product (usually a package of auditing
sessions, known as an “intensive”) to fit those needs and

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accepting payment for that product. After reaching “clear,”
members could go on to the more advanced levels of the
church, and become “Operating Thetans,” or simply “OTs.”

Since its origins, Scientology has faced opposition and

controversy, including long-running complaints from the
medical and scientific communities over Hubbard’s claims
regarding mental health and the science behind the E-meters,
as well as complaints over its status as a religion. As it grew,
Scientology became involved in multiple legal battles,
including lawsuits filed by former members claiming serious
mistreatment by the church. Though Hubbard himself headed
up the Church of Scientology in its early years, in 1966 he
resigned all offices and focused on developing post-Clear,
Operating Thetan levels. Amid increasing scrutiny of the
movement he founded, Hubbard disappeared from public
view in 1980.

Among Scientology’s most visible adherents over the years

have been Hollywood stars like Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley,
John Travolta, Isaac Hayes and others. Despite its strong
connection with California, and particularly Hollywood, the
church’s spiritual headquarters are located in Clearwater,
Florida.

The United States, home to the majority of Scientologists, has

recognized Scientology as a religion, with the Internal
Revenue Service (IRS) reaffirming the church’s tax-exempt

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status in 1993 after a long-running investigation. In 2013,
Britain’s highest court similarly affirmed Scientology’s status
as a religion by ruling that the group could conduct weddings
at its church in London. Other countries have refused to
legitimize the faith: Germany has barred Scientologists from
holding public office, while in 2009 a French court found the
church guilty of fraud but stopped short of banning it
altogether.

According to the official Church of Scientology website, there

are now more than 11,000 churches, missions and groups in
184 nations, and the movement welcomes more than 4.4
million new people each year. But scholars and outside
observers of the movement say the number of practicing
Scientologists may be lower than the church claims, possibly
numbering in the hundreds of thousands worldwide.

Analysis #3
As mentioned in the case study, scientology has been a topic
of controversy for seemingly its entire shelf life. But, unlike
our other so-called cults, scientology still thrives. It is still
deemed a cult in many places and has strong opposition, but it
is also growing at a steep pace. The question here is, how can
groups such as the Peoples Temple and Scientology be termed
under the same category?

In actuality, Scientology has begun to be recognized as a

religion although it still maintains its cult status. Scientology

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has now been recognized as a religion in some countries due
to the vast number of followers and also due to the fact that it
fits the functional characteristics of religion. It may be said
that religion has the functional capacity:
(a) at the personal level to help people overcome problems of
personality imbalance, self-identity, meaning in life, moral
reasoning, etc.,
(b) at the communal level to integrate potentially rootless
people into groups and associations which provide direction
and meaning in personal life as well as helpful points of
reference in large-scale societies where the individual may
feel vulnerable to an all-powerful bureaucracy or system, or
(c) at the societal level to provide legitimation for the
prevailing social order; compensation for felt deprivations;
and moral regulation of the interrelationships between major
social institutions.

The Basic Teachings of Scientology can be said to reflect

these functional views. It still maintains its cult status due to
reports of hostility and oppression which occasionally leak out
from members. Again, media has termed another group as a
cult due to the negative connotations associated with it.

This can also be seen as an example of social constructionist

school of thought. This school of thought suggests that a
“cult” is any group that threatens mainstream cultural beliefs
and institutions, like the Catholic and Protestant churches in
America. If all religious groups in America had the same

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definition of new religious movements applied to them, then
one could easily accuse those same mainstream religious
groups of being cult-like and deviant themselves – for
example, the child sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church
or the behavior of those in the Protestant mega-churches that
have been accused of brainwashing followers and stealing
their money. It is only because Scientology is much smaller
than Catholicism that this doesn’t occur. In the minds of many
people, this re-examination of which groups are considered to
be “cults” calls into question the idea that a “cult” is a “cult,”
and that all of these groups defined as cults – to the exclusion
of other religious institutions – in the public sphere are
dangerous.

Case Study Conclusion

In all three case studies, one thing in common can be seen; all
the three movements mentioned were termed as cults with no
regard to the actual meaning of cults. Rather, it comes from
the public sphere view that these new religious movements
were committing heinous acts which leads to them being
called cults because in their view, cults are something that is
inherently bad.

We can also see the effect of mass media as an agent of

socialization. Almost all individuals are unaware of the true
connotations of the word cult owing to the fact that the media
and even pop culture is constantly portraying cults as evil
institutions which cannot be defined as religions.

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SECONDARY RESEARCH

Resource #1 – What Makes A Cult? – The

Guardian (2009)
‘What Makes A Cult?’ was the title of an article published
around 11 years ago in The Guardian, a British media and
news website. The article brought up the issue occurring in
France where a French government agency, Miviludes,
reported a threefold increase in sects over the past 15 years.
The government provided funds to battle the growth of cults
and sects. Its definition of sects is a wide one: it includes
religious and quasi-religious movements alongside
unregulated therapies of various different kinds.

Majority of the French population applauded this decision.

The article raises the question of whether this fear of being
"brainwashed" is justified. And, also the question of how
exactly to define the term “cult” or “sect.” Multiple responses
to these questions were recorded. Respondents included
professor of philosophy Harriet Erica Baber, executive
director of the nonprofit Cult Education Institute Rick Alan
Ross, freelance journalist and newspaper editor Judith Evans
and renowned professor of sociology Eileen Barker.

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1. H.E. Baber - While there are no generally accepted criteria
for classifying religious movements as cults, one
characteristic growing cults have in common, and share
with conservative evangelical groups, is the conviction that
their constitutive theologies are important for all people and
their willingness invest in aggressive, expensive
evangelism.
2. Rick Ross - A typical cult has a charismatic, unaccountable
leader, persuades by coercion and exploits its members,
economically, sexually or in some other way.
3. Judith Evans - Not all new movements are equally harmful,
and people who come out the other side may be better off
for their experiences.
4. Eileen Barker - Sociologists sometimes use the term in a
technical sense, usually signifying that a cult is a group in
tension with the rest of society. However, because using a
negative label can obfuscate rather than increase our
knowledge of the group, we have tended to use the term
"new religious movement" to describe the groups that
became visible in the west during the past half century.

Analysis #1
It is no surprise that the French government is funding against
sects. Their distrust of cults is not unknown; they are amongst
the countries to denounce scientology. There is a common
fear among the general public of the “cult”. This fear is built
through pop culture and mass media to increase opponents of
new religious movements. This is why we try to understand

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the meaning of the word “cult” and try to see if it inherently
denotes something dangerous.

H.E. Baber believes that something that all cults have in

common is conviction. New religious movements hold more
attraction for young people than churches that have jettisoned
their fundamental theology for fear of offending. This is
wholly because cults, sects and new religious movements
truly believe that their theology is interesting, and this attracts
adherents. By this definition, cults are not innately dangerous;
they are simply convincing, charismatic and attractive.

According to Rick Ross, the word cult can be broadly defined

as "a system of religious beliefs and its body of adherents," "a
religion regarded as 'unorthodox or spurious,'" "great devotion
to a person or idea" as well as "persons united by devotion or
allegiance to an artistic or intellectual movement or figure."
These general definitions could potentially include everything
from Barbie doll collectors to so-called "Trekkies" and die-
hard Elvis fans. He is of the opinion that cults have certain
characteristics that define them; some of which have been
mentioned earlier in this report. For example, charismatic
leader and coercive persuasion. Ross explains some tell-tale
signs which can point to unsafe cults. So, we can conclude
that there are safe and unsafe cults, meaning cults are not
unsafe as a characteristic.

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Judith Evans talked to two people who definitively identified
that they were in cults. Surprisingly, neither of them regretted
having been in a cult even though they were aware that those
movements were in fact cults and both had parted with a lot of
money, been emotionally coerced, and went through a long
recovery process. This gives us the conclusion that cults and
sects do not always have negative effects on the personal and
public spheres.

In her explanation, Eileen Barker, through various examples,

comes to the realization that there is no behaviour found in the
so-called cults that cannot also be found in mainstream
religions. This is not to disavow any of the bad things that
cults have done or to be a cult apologetic; it is simply stating
that although some cults have undoubtedly engaged in
heinous activities, a vast majority has not.

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Resource #2 – Is it a cult, or a new religious
movement? – Penn Today (2019)
This particular article from Penn Today, the news outlet of
Penn State University, asks the sociologically relevant
question, what is the difference between a cult and a new
religious movement? This article tries to define cult by
referring to famed cults and new religious movements. They
came up with a few characteristics or commonalities between
cults as well as new religious movements.

A charismatic leader may be a reason to conflate cults with

religions. Buddhism and Christianity are both named after a
charismatic leader. Islam, originally called Mohammedanism,
is also named after its leader. Religions and cults often follow
a leader who claims divine, or at least special, access to
different models of knowledge and revelations. Many are
martyred. Jesus of Nazareth was famously crucified. Joseph
Smith, Mormonism’s founder, was lynched, leaving Brigham

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Young to lead followers west. End days is another consistent
theme in cults and religions, both new and old. Nirvana,
heaven, Zion, or outer space are a guiding principle in their
scriptures.

The most interesting conclusion they arrived at was that if any

one factor can determine the difference between a cult and a
religion, it would be time. Scientology is now recognized by
the US government as a religion, with tax-exempt status.
Mormonism used to be considered such a deviant form of
heterodoxy its founder was lynched. Now the Mormon
Church has more than 14 million members worldwide.

Analysis #2
According to Penn State Today, the term cult refers to a social
movement. People have an intuitive feeling of when the term
cult should be used even when the movement fits the criteria
of a religion for example, Scientology and Mormonism.
Scientology and Mormonism have outlived their charismatic
leaders. They have openly published their beliefs as scripture.
Both religions seek truth by offering its followers a roadmap
for their place in the universe, along with a moral code. Those
who accept the beliefs and rituals are members of the religion.
But many outside consider the movement, and its followers,
to be a cult.

The commonalities mentioned in the articles seek to

understand why people often call seemingly religious

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movements, cults. The similarities between the terms do not
make things easier to differentiate. The differentiation is also
made more complicated by sociologists preferring to use the
term new religious movement instead of cult to try and denote
the negative connotations of the term. A theory of why people
are reluctant to refer to religious movements as religions is
precisely because of religion. People are hesitant or even
afraid to term something as a religion in case it turns out to be
hostile or volatile.

Resource #3 – The Risks of Cults – Utah Valley

University (2019)
The Risks of Cults was a project done by members of the
Ph.D. Master of Social Work program at the Utah Valley
University. The purpose of this project was to identify the
reasons behind joining a cult, what should be done when
suspecting someone is a part of a cult and factors counselors
should be aware of
when working with those who have survived/escaped a cult.
Finding accurate and detailed information on cults has proven
to be difficult due to their nature of secrecy.

Based on the effects of those who joined cults, this team

concluded that cults are in fact dangerous and have adverse
effects on members. They discovered that some factors for
joining include searching for self-change, life dissatisfaction,
a sense of lacking purpose, and having a family member
already involved. Being part of these organizations can be

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dangerous because of the control and charismatic traits of the
leader. They concluded that the risk of having mental health
issues can be increased because of the environment and
demanding way of living in cultism.

Analysis #3
This report by the Utah Valley University discuss the ill-
effects of cults. The report does not leave room for thought of
whether or not cults are unsafe; it assumes all cults are unsafe
and talks about ways to help people in cults. Hence, this
particular project is done on the basis of the essentialist school
of thought, which is contrasting to the social constructionist
school of thought we have discussed earlier. According to the
essentialists, all cults end up badly, with many of these groups
engaging in mass suicides, criminal acts, abuse, financial
theft/exploitation and devastation for anyone who survives.

Some specific charges that essentialists suggest as occurring

within all groups considered to be cults include deviance, drug
use, a hostility to the outside world that the leadership uses to
hold the group together (many times accompanied by a belief
that the world is coming to an end) and a mixing of belief
systems that seemingly do not fit together (socialism and
Christianity, Heaven’s Gate’s belief that Jesus was coming to
save them in space ship). This definition of all cults as easily
identifiable and ultimately “evil” is ensconced in the way the
media, government, mainstream religious groups and the
general public view the concept of a cult.

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Secondary Research Conclusion
All the three resources were of different natures and as such
provided background for various branches under this topic.
We can see the two different schools of thought, social
constructionism and essentialism in action in this study. The
different attempts of defining cults also give us information
about these schools of thought.
We understand that from a sociological point of view, having
multiple definitions for cults and even new religious
movements is necessary in order to objectively comprehend
the reasoning behind certain ideas. The research does not
definitively provide an answer for whether cults are inherently
dangerous. Instead there are opposing arguments for why
cults are unsafe and why they may or may not be unsafe.

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SURVEY
Sample Survey

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Survey Analysis
Question 1:

50% of the respondents are in the age group of 16-25 which

ranges from teenage to early adulthood. There is a higher
likelihood that this demographic has been influenced by pop
culture and newer forms of media.

Question 2:

Majority of the respondents were agnostic, meaning they

believe that the existence or lack thereof of God is
unknowable. The second highest majority is of Christians,
followed by atheists and Muslims.

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Question 3:

As expected, a huge majority of respondents have never

themselves been part of a cult although a small minority has
had experiences in a cult. It could also be that some people do
not identify their group or movement to be a cult.

Question 4:

An overwhelming majority does not approve of cults.

Considering the age group and the lack of involvement in
cults, its safe to say this opinion has been socialized through
the media.

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Question 5:

Most respondents agree that cults do have a correlation with

religion and they also believe in the destructive or negatively
charged aspects of cultism.

Question 6:

An almost identical reply as with the previous question. More

than half of all respondents either agree or strongly agree that
cults are unsafe, dangerous and cause harm.

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Question 7:

Large percentage of respondents believe that cults are violent

and abusive towards its members. A considerable number of
respondents disagree with this notion although only a few
strongly disagree.

Question 8:

Contrastingly, respondents do not think that cult members

themselves are deviant, though they have previously agreed

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that cults do engage in deviant behaviour. This shows a faith
in individuals over institutions.

Question 9:

This furthers the theory that people trust individuals over

institutions. 46.7% of respondents strongly agree that certain
types of people are targeted for cults and 40% of people agree
to the same. In accordance with the last question, respondents
believe that people are not inherently bad, but cults are
inherently bad and thus cause deviancy.

Question 10:

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We can see a huge reluctance in viewing cults as religions
despite some cults having the functional capacity of religions.
It is an example of social constructionism.

Question 11:

This question is connected to question number 10. Although

there was a reluctance in accepting cults as religion,
respondents agree that religions are a type of cult.

Question 12:

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The lack of uniformity in responses can be due to lack of
general knowledge of cults and/or new religious movements.
Respondents seem conflicted about whether new religious
movements count as cults.

Question 13:

The respondents are almost evenly divided on the question of

regulation of cults. Since this is not a widely talked about
topic, the responses are split between 54.5% in favour of

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regulation and 45.5% not in favour of regulation which is not
a huge margin of difference.

Question 14:

Majority of people would not approve if someone they knew

were involved with a cult. Mostly due to the fear incited by
mass media.

Question 15:

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As expected from the age demographic, over 50% of
respondents received their knowledge of cults from mass
media and pop culture.

Survey Conclusion
Major takeaways from the survey include the confirmation of
importance of mass media in shaping opinions especially in
the age demographic of under 25. We also have a grasp of the
common sensical view of the meaning of cults. Cults are
thought to mean something violent and abusive in the public
sphere. This conclusion is formed by people even though most
people have never directly interacted with a cult or known
anyone in a cult. It is evident that the negative connotations of
cults have stuck in the public sphere despite sociological
definitions.

CONCLUSION
After extensive research on this topic through triangulation,
the background and undertone of the question “are cults
inherently dangerous?” becomes clearer. In simple words,
cults are not inherently dangerous. This is because the basic
definition of cult is that it is simply a social group or
movement characterized by unusual philosophies or
ideologies. This in itself causes no harm to anyone. People in

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such a group do not have to be engaging in deviant behaviour
even though they practice ritualistic behaviour. Cults become
dangerous when a transition or a shift happens in the ideology
which then puts the members in harm’s way. It is important to
note that new religious movements should not be named cults
once they become heinous since heinousness has no
sociological relevance to cults.
The shift in ideology usually has psychological as well as
sociological explanations behind it. It is unforeseen by the
members who join the group since they are only joining a
group with people having similar ideologies. If people were
aware of the deviancies that lie ahead, they would not have
joined. As said by Deborah Layton, a former member of the
Peoples Temple, in her book ‘Seductive Poison’ no one joins
a so-called “cult”: you join a community group, a church
group or a charity group, and then the group changes, and
before you know it you cannot get out. Even when members
of the group start to realize the deviant direction of the group,
many times those inside feel that they cannot leave.
The term cult was never supposed to be used to describe
dangerous groups. It does so now in the public sphere due to
the connotations attached to it over the years by cult
opponents, religious institutions and mass media. This is why
cults are considered inherently dangerous, although the term
itself denotes nothing of the sort. Of course, there are harmful
cults, which we have discussed, but there also cults which are
generally safe and harmless. As such, sociologists have

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stressed the importance in using varied terms to differentiate
such topics and also have them be socialized to the general
public. Sociologists are, therefore, attempting to create
definitions and terms that are value-free and objective.

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APPENDIX

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The Peoples Temple still has supporters due to Jim Jones’ insane charisma

The Heaven’s Gate website is still active today!

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Heaven’s Gate is probably the most well-known UFO cult.

CNN takes a stab at explaining Scientology

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 The Guardian provides various definitions of cult

PennToday talks about cults with respect to new religious movements

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The Risks of Cults by Utah Valley University MSW Program

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Survey Responses 1-5

Questions 1-5

Questions 6-10

Questions 11-15

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Survey Responses 6-10

Questions 1-5

Questions 6-10

Questions 11-15

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Survey Responses 11-15

Questions 1-5

Questions 6-10

Questions 11-15

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