Cults Essay Research Paper On November 18

Cults Essay, Research Paper

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