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Edward M. Levine and his article on "Religious Cults."
The nature of cults has been just as curious for our modern society as it was for the ancient ones. What are cults? Why are they prevalent? And who falls victim to becoming part of a cult? Sociologists Edward M. Levine from Loyola University answers these questions in his article on Religious Cults: Their Implications for Society and the Democratic Process. One thing he does ascertain throughout his entire findings is that the cults who have been studied are very controversial especially when information is collected from cult members, ex-cult members and parents of the young people who are still or were once part of a cult.
Parents of young people who have been in cults are convinced that that, “cult life is generally impairing, and occasionally destructive, of the well-being of their children.” Levine concluded that the perfect victims are the ones with the most malleable minds. Children and young people are therefore the most sought after by cult leaders. The majority of young cult members who are most attracted with the idea of becoming part of the cult community share certain characteristics such as, social rootlessness, emotional distress, and psychological needs.
Levine states that cults are unique to the urban industrial society. They provide a sound and structural setting, notably after the urban youth became actively involved in civil rights movements and in the end they were dissatisfied with the lack of progressive results. At this point in time, the youth became disenfranchised with society and many chose to live ostracized from society. For example, the 1960’s was an era of transformation for the United States with social reform that coincidentally also began to transform the way in which the youth behaved, creating a generation gap between the parents and youth. An atmosphere of rebelliousness and dissipation of religion took over the youth population because they could not longer identify with religion when they were more interested in “secular objectives,” for social betterment. As Levine so eloquently states the tumultuous era, “These attitudes reflected the impulse-gratifying, self-centered, present-oriented emphases that were ever increasingly gaining ascendance in their minds and lives,” in other words, the culture became impulsive, material oriented and desired to live life to the extreme.
Living in this manner eventually gets old and redundant, meaning in life begins to wane. Many young and intelligent college students would leave the comfort of their middle class upbringing to experience the “hippie-way.” They were looking for unrestricted freedom for the purpose of self-fulfillment. Many decided to form communes with youth with the same ideals, but they were an illusory conception of an alternative way of life because they were short lived (Levine p.37). They failed to keep on carrying out this way of life because the self-indulgent life did not actually provide them with a life purpose.
In truth, what was need for this youth was behavioral monitoring, but through urbanization and post industrialism there was a lack of effect guidance and doctrines on how to be self-disciplined. Finding it difficult to regulate their ego’s and superego’s many of the youth turned to drugs or fell into depression. So what happened next was not surprising when there were inadequate sources for a meaningful existence. Autocratic religious cults began to show up, the majority of who were headed by narcissistic, domineering and authoritarian leaders who worked to charm the weak-minded youth and convince them to become their subordinates.
Cults want to control the minds and lives of their members. Some even go as far as to use deceptive measure to convince people to join their congregations. Four things that youths found tempting about what certain cults advertised was 1) a charismatic, authoritative leader with whom to identify, 2) a religious doctrine that promised to solve the problems of both the members and the worlds, 3) regulations governing their daily lives and 4) forming relationships with like-minded people. No matter the religious practices or the doctrine that is followed by a certain cult, these four factors are common to all cults and contribute to form the main mission, to essentially promote, “belief and belonging.”
The nature of cults has been just as curious for our modern society as it was for the ancient ones. What are cults? Why are they prevalent? And who falls victim to becoming part of a cult? Sociologists Edward M. Levine from Loyola University answers these questions in his article on Religious Cults: Their Implications for Society and the Democratic Process. One thing he does ascertain throughout his entire findings is that the cults who have been studied are very controversial especially when information is collected from cult members, ex-cult members and parents of the young people who are still or were once part of a cult.
Parents of young people who have been in cults are convinced that that, “cult life is generally impairing, and occasionally destructive, of the well-being of their children.” Levine concluded that the perfect victims are the ones with the most malleable minds. Children and young people are therefore the most sought after by cult leaders. The majority of young cult members who are most attracted with the idea of becoming part of the cult community share certain characteristics such as, social rootlessness, emotional distress, and psychological needs.
Levine states that cults are unique to the urban industrial society. They provide a sound and structural setting, notably after the urban youth became actively involved in civil rights movements and in the end they were dissatisfied with the lack of progressive results. At this point in time, the youth became disenfranchised with society and many chose to live ostracized from society. For example, the 1960’s was an era of transformation for the United States with social reform that coincidentally also began to transform the way in which the youth behaved, creating a generation gap between the parents and youth. An atmosphere of rebelliousness and dissipation of religion took over the youth population because they could not longer identify with religion when they were more interested in “secular objectives,” for social betterment. As Levine so eloquently states the tumultuous era, “These attitudes reflected the impulse-gratifying, self-centered, present-oriented emphases that were ever increasingly gaining ascendance in their minds and lives,” in other words, the culture became impulsive, material oriented and desired to live life to the extreme.
Living in this manner eventually gets old and redundant, meaning in life begins to wane. Many young and intelligent college students would leave the comfort of their middle class upbringing to experience the “hippie-way.” They were looking for unrestricted freedom for the purpose of self-fulfillment. Many decided to form communes with youth with the same ideals, but they were an illusory conception of an alternative way of life because they were short lived (Levine p.37). They failed to keep on carrying out this way of life because the self-indulgent life did not actually provide them with a life purpose.
In truth, what was need for this youth was behavioral monitoring, but through urbanization and post industrialism there was a lack of effect guidance and doctrines on how to be self-disciplined. Finding it difficult to regulate their ego’s and superego’s many of the youth turned to drugs or fell into depression. So what happened next was not surprising when there were inadequate sources for a meaningful existence. Autocratic religious cults began to show up, the majority of who were headed by narcissistic, domineering and authoritarian leaders who worked to charm the weak-minded youth and convince them to become their subordinates.
Cults want to control the minds and lives of their members. Some even go as far as to use deceptive measure to convince people to join their congregations. Four things that youths found tempting about what certain cults advertised was 1) a charismatic, authoritative leader with whom to identify, 2) a religious doctrine that promised to solve the problems of both the members and the worlds, 3) regulations governing their daily lives and 4) forming relationships with like-minded people. No matter the religious practices or the doctrine that is followed by a certain cult, these four factors are common to all cults and contribute to form the main mission, to essentially promote, “belief and belonging.”