The word “cult” in this context is something of a pejorative… but I see your point.

As for the answer: sociologist Adam Possamai has some persuasive points regarding what he calls “hyper-real” religions – beliefs based on mythos which make no claim to any objective truth, often derived from mass media. So there have been “cults” – they're things like Jediism (which managed to pull in more adherents according to the last UK census than many mainstream faiths), Matrixism and, yes, Otherkin.
You might also have heard of The Cult Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Hail Eris!
Cat Vincent

Cat: Well, I admit, I put “cult” in the title because it makes a snappier headline. But like I said, “cults, sects and new religions” – call them what you will. I'm not trying to judge, new religions are at least as good as old ones in my view.

Interesting point about Possamai, I will have to read up on that…

“increasing homogenization of opinion – towards one pole in Europe”

This will sound snarky but it's not meant that way… what's the one pole in Europe in your opinion? Hasn't the recession increased support for both left- and right-wing “outliers”? Also, do you know of any good studies on whether increasing homogenization of opinion is really a thing? Just curious.

End of the cold war perhaps? Assuming for arguments sake, that 1945 to 1990 was a particularly fecund period for new religions, maybe the dread of total annihilation at any moment, is what drove people to them.

The only “Cults” post 1990 I can come up with are all based in the East. Falun Gong (China) 1992 and Arum Shinko (Japan) (1980) but which gained notoriety in 1995 with the Sarin Gas attacks on the Tokyo underground.

The Cult information centre defines a cult in the following terms:

1) It uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members
2). It forms an elitist totalitarian society.
3).Its founder leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable and has charisma.
4). It believes 'the end justifies the means' in order to solicit funds and recruit people.
5).Its wealth does not benefit its members or society.

I would add another defining characteristic cults are all anti-establishment to some degree. I know you wanted to avoid comedy comments like we have global warming now but environmentalism, anti global capitalism, animal rights, Occupy Wall St and other protest movements of the 1990's and 2000+ such as the Greenham Common camp (still going despite the removal of Cruse missiles from the air base there) may have taken the place of more conventional “cults”.

(Conventional Cult is that a contradiction in terms?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vissarion

Vice magazine has an awesome short documentary on this one.

Anonymous: Mmm… yeah Harold Camping maybe… but he's been on Family Radio since the 70s. He only started predicting the end of the world recently, but he's been in business for much longer.

Although you could argue he was an orthodox Christian until recently, which would make his recent stuff a new group.

Actually that reminds me of Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church. They may be an exception. Not sure when they were founded.

Is it possible that, in the age of the internet/constant connectivity, the isolation and indoctrination necessary in a cult just isn't as easy to manage? I feel like groups can't really exist in secret anymore, because as soon as one person sees through the facade and gets out you have the potential for a worldwide spread of information on the group and its practices. Scientology is a good example; As “secret” as its practices are meant to be, we still have reams of information on them from former practitioners.

In Asia especially South East Asia,new “cults” have sprung out from off shhots of main religions or from a mixture of two or more religions.
I think as a country becomes more developed,the number of “cults” decrease,as secularization kicks in,lack of time to pray,think about God because one is content about life.
You should look at Asia especially South East Asia as the next “cult”land.

Happy Science. Started in Japan, but now have chapters throughout Europe and the USA. And if they don't count as a full-on wear-your-underwear-on-you-head cult, then nothing does.

And if Manson Family counts as a cult, then you can probably find dozens of new cults in various religious end-of-times themed christian and islamic extremist offshoots.

Another factor is the demise of denominational branding. Lots of individual congregations with charismatic leaders that in earlier years would have identified themselves as part of a denomination or sect or movement now prefer to simply self-identify as “Christian”, a label that isn't very informative about what is actually going on in that denomination in terms of ritual, practice and doctrine (Mormons, for example, have been engaged in a vigorous campaign of trying to debrand themselves into part of the generalized “Christian” brand). Some of these Congregations have practices sometimes associated in the past with cults or sects. For example, while Evangelicals and charismatics used to see exorcism as a Catholic thing, quite a few have warmed to the practice without the institutional safeguards of the Roman Catholic church.

Extremist movements within the broad umbrella of Islam have also attacted a fair share of individuals who might otherwise have joined a scary religious cult in the 1960s, again, using a debranded generalized religious label that no one controls for their particular little corner of the religious world, rather than a distinctive new brand of their own. The recent experience of the Alawites via backlash related to the Syrian uprising and against Sikhs (mostly by people who think they are Muslims) are recent examples of the downside of having a distinctive religious brand that makes it easy to single you out.

This said, new religious movements do tend too come in waves and we probably are at the bottom of one rather than the top of one, with the ages of people in demographic bulges, the level of religious involvement in politics, and factors like the Bowling Alone social capital hypothesis all playing their parts.

I also think that nominally secular conservative movements (the Tea Party and white supremacist movements in the U.S., and far right to neofascist groups in Europe) have sucked a lot of the crazy out of self-styled religious movements. On the left, the crazy has been sucked up by the Occupy movement.

Religious innovation right now is probably most vibrant in Africa and in immigrant churches in the West.

Jan Moren: I hadn't heard of Happy Science but yes, they could be an exception. I didn't have Japan in mind with this post but still, if a Japanese group is spreading in the West then that would count against my theory.

Unfortunately I haven't read all of the comments, but I really do think we are in the end of “an era”…; would that be the freedom of thinking and analysing as well as our educative background…, the realisation that we might not have well understood the previous while our understanding is just another pebble to the prexisting puzzle of our intuitive mind ?! From one side, hopefully, our rational mind has become a good servant, for others as Einstein said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

I'd toss another option into the list – corporate cults aka the cult of objects.

Corporate culture is learning from religion and cult-behaviour to enable workers to “believe” in the corporate dogma. Startups and tech companies do it well – Square, Apple, Nike, Subway, Starbucks.

The other angle worth thinking about is shifting ideology of generations. Kids in the 50s (adults in the 70s) – end of the boomer generation, you have freedom now so live it.
Look at 80s/90s kids 00s/10s adults: You're special, you're important, you can do anything you want, here's the internet so now be an individual on the internet.
Very individualistic and narcissistic focus.

Would definitely look to the East for rising “cults”, but wouldn't categorise them as religious but more about belief on a core objective.

“Maybe there is still innovation in religion, but the fashion has become to present it as being old.”

Let's not forget the social imprint of existing religions. Nowadays it's hard to grow up somewhere without being exposed to some pre-existing religion, so logically a totally 'new' cult would be hard put to not be influenced.

Imo the non-emergence of radically different cults is more likely due to this effect then some ephemeral 'end of times' feeling.

As such, the EndOfTheWorld foundations common in all religions and cults actually make them all variations on a theme.

Sahaja Yoga is a cult (or close enough) that's been founded in the 1970s, but it has really only taken off in the late nineties and early oughts.

///Even the Skeptic movement (bloggers!) has developed tactics of a cult. 'Denialism' or 'heresy' anyone?///

17 August 2012 12:54

I have to strongly disagree concerning Neuroskeptic at least. He might be so enclined at seeing red on some commentator or comments from time to time- but not with the scope of protecting the launching of a personality cult about himself in my opinion.

It looks more -to my mind but I do not know who he is – like a begnign form of OCD 's love for control and at other time from real affection and chivalry protecting personal or online friends.

But how right could be those who noticed that the cults have transfer from religion to health care with homeopaths guru (and I am a doctor prescribing homeopathy writing that)and yogi guru etc…

Here's another theory that could explain a substantive difference:

Superstition and religiousity are quite closely aligned with uncertainty in one's personal life.

Farmers who depend on the year's rain and a lack of natural disasters and many other factors for their well being in a year are more religious on average than people who make steady paychecks in offices. Entrapreneurs in Latin America with uncertain incomes are more religious than wage and salary earners there. Actors whose success in getting new roles depends to a great extent on chance are far more superstituous than bank tellers. One reason for lower religiousity in more affluent individuals may be their increased economic and marital security.

Religions thrive in places where a culture is threatened leaving the cultural future uncertain (e.g. English ruled Ireland provided a boost to Catholicism as the protector of the Irish national culture, churches in the American South that espouse a Southern culture contrary to the dominant American national cultulre are more vibrant, and immigrant churches that preserve homeland culture are often more vibrant than the same churches at home where that culture is not threatened).

There is evidence too that family size is closely linked to the probability of a child surviving to adulthood (more certainty, less children needed to hedge one's bets) and that the religiousity associated with large family size is an effect rather than a cause of large family size. But, maybe the religiousity associated with large family size is more directly an effect of the same uncertainty of child survival that leads to large family size.

In this analysis, cult activity should surge in times of great national uncertainty over the cultural future, like the 1960s and also like the Second Great Awakening of the 1840s in the American South when the uncertainty over the political future of these states (and core institutions in the South like slavery) that ultimate led to secession and the U.S. Civil War arose. The emergence of Rabbinic Judaism, Christianity and a whole lot of other sects that failed coincided with the imminent demise of the Jewish state and the uncertainty of its future following the destruction of the Temple. The Shiite branch within Islam arose from the uncertainty associated with a succession struggle and civil war within the early Islamic empire. The Reformation coincided with uncertainty regarding the demise of feudalism and the changes brought about by the Rennaisance. Arum Shinko came into its own during Japan's first major period of economic crisis. Falun Gong arose in a period of great upheaval and transition in China (as did Confucianism).

We've seen far less cultural transformation and uncertainty about the future in the last couple of decades (at least before the Great Recession took hold and even then in terms of the cultural fundamentals of the nation) than in the 1960s, so there has been less of a need for religious innovation and less religiousity in general for religious innovation to feed off.

It was all a bit pre-millenial, wasn't it? Social Media has turned up and burst its bubble. Fun while it lasted, though.

And another thing. In the run up to 2K you couldn't move without hearing about black triangular UFOs clogging up Belgian airspace. X-Files and Dark Skies caught that particular zeitgeist admirably. So where have they all gone? Nowadays we all have HD camera phones and movie cameras. So where are all the HD photos and films of flying saucers? Eh? EH?

I think Cults have had their business stolen by more economically minded human hackers. Just like in computer security, you rarely see viruses not made with a profit gain in mind any more, you rarely see Cults without a profit motive. MLM marketing and various pyramid schemes and self-help clubs have stolen the customers from the Cults, as they use all the same methods, but they do it better.

There's been a good bit of scholarship on this question, which you might find interesting.

An important one: http://www.prem-rawat-bio.org/academic/stark1996.html

1990 onward is the same period where people noticed that new design style seemed to end. Cars design only changes incrementally and often retro (VW Beetle, Dodge Charger, etc). Fashion is moving in circles, it's hard to distinguish the slacker of today with one from 1992, the droopy pants style is still treated as fresh.

I think what's happened in both style and cults is that the existing ones are better marketed. Before the Internet it was hard to research and buy clothes from decades before. Now it's easy. Before you had to choose from the churches and cults in your local area. Now you can find saints and weirdos who share most of your beliefs beyond your town.

This makes it easier for existing styles and religions to survive. That makes it harder for new ones to compete because they can't establish a local monopoly on an idea vs temporal or geographic competition.

Would Al-Quayeda count as a cult of more recent vintage? An end times theology, distinctive dress, a tendency to isolate its followers from their family and former social connections, and ultimately, martyrdom—all seem like cult characteristics.

Ummm… Terrorism happened.

I agree and I think it's a combination most of the factors Neuroskeptic listed.

I would like to think I see the bigger hand of evolution in this as well, all though that's purely speculative on my part. I'd like to think that western culture is finally starting to move beyond having simplistic narratives to cling to (virgin birth, a god who physically sits on a cloud (or star) in the sky somewhere, etc) and becoming more OK to live in a universe without easy childlike solutions to everything. But again, that just may be wishful thinking on my part.

Asia is a different story of course. Others have noted that we now brand as 'terrorist organizations' those splinter groups that commit acts of violence in the name of God. Formerly they might well have been seen as religious cults, but now they are more likely to be identified as political factions.

What is entirely missing is the mass suicide cults a la Heavens Gate and Jonestown. Perhaps the fact that both the year 2000 and 2012 have arrived and the world hasn't ended have kind of quieted the hype down, at least until year 2100 starts approaching. And if your an 80/90s kid you have had the pleasure of watching a number of people predict the end of the world and be totally wrong, so maybe that age group isn't as gullible as the 50's/60's kids.

That Fuzzy Bastard: “Would Al-Quayeda count as a cult of more recent vintage?”

It is a cult and a fairly recent one (founded about 1990) but I'm thinking of Western cults here. Although they did have some Western-naturalized Muslim members, they were fundamentally a middle eastern group.

This was a fascinating post, and a great discussion. I have two things to say, which I will break in to separate comments in case I ramble on too much here…

I think most of your reasons are spot on, with some of the most significant being the general rise of secularism and decline of religion, the general decline of social groups, and the fact that lonely, isolated people have more options open to them than they once did.

Someone mentioned generational differences, and I would like to discuss that in more depth, and from a slightly different angle. This will actually overlap with your third point about the previous era being the exception.

Now, this will involve some generalizations, but I think they have some basis in reality.

Think of all the 'modern' generations, the postwar era generations. There was the Greatest Generation, the Silents, the Boomers, the Jonesers (aka late Boomers, or early X-er's), Gen X, and now the Millennials.

The Boomers, out of all of these generations, may deserve the reputation of being the most 'spiritual'/religious, at least in one sense. The generations before them were conventional when it came to these matters. They attended mainline protestant churches that were largely apolitical, and, by modern standards, pretty boring. The generations after them (with the possible exception of the Jonesers) tend to be very secular, especially Millennials.

The period of innovation, and the religions/cults you cite, were primarily driven by the Boomers. They may not have founded them all, nor accounted for all of their membership, but their influence here is probably much greater than any other generation.

After all, the Boomers have always had a reputation as being the generation that is most serious about spiritual seeking, and trying to find a more 'authentic' religious experience, whatever that may be.

So, it's possible that a major reason for the current state of affairs is simply the decline of the Baby Boom generation, and the fact that their successors don't seem to prioritize spiritual matters as much as they did.

Blame feminism. Kind of a joke, but not really.

Increased awareness of rape, child abuse and domestic violence have made not only feminist women, but mainstream society far more aware of what constitutes abusive behavior. This not only shrinks the pool of potential victims, but increases the possibility that friends and family will notice what is happening and intervene. As somewhat of a corollary, in the US, rape has declined by 60% since 1993 (acknowledging that counting rape is difficult and that there are still too many damn rapes!). I would argue that these are signs that American's expectations for personal dignity are higher than they were.

As mentioned above, evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity became substantially weirder and the political power of the Christian right allowed cult leaders who labeled themselves as Christian to pass unremarked in their communities. The internet and self-help movements have probably created a sort of “culting in place.” Credit cards, electronic databases, and the internet have made it harder not only to hide, but to create a new identity for yourself.

One wild card – homeschooling. It's been a massive experiment. I'm curious to see what will come out in the memoirs of kids who've grown up homeschooled in abusive and cultish situations.

Mo

“It could be that cultish activity is no longer same way it was in the '50s – '80s.”

Correction: is no longer reported on in the same way.

Dawkins and Atheist Fundamentalism.
Jobs and Apple
Andrew Wakefield and the anti MMR cult.

RedRabbit: “For instance, what about stuff like Joel Osteen,Rick Warren, and the 'self help' megachurch style suburban/exurban middle class christianity? That sort of thing is often seen as just “evangelical”, but I do think it could be seen as its own distinct branch/trend/whatever you want to call it.”

Well my impression, although I have no direct experience, is that these megachurches are a good example of the 'cult-ification of the mainstream' phenomenon that's been discussed in this thread.

i.e. you have ideas that, 30 years ago, would have been regarded as well outside the mainstream – that are now accepted (albeit reluctantly) as a more or less everyday form of “Christianity”.

But the megachurches are not true cults because they're part of mainstream society. You don't have to turn your back on the world in order to join them. Indeed one of their main selling points is that they'll make you a success in the everyday world (i.e. rich & famous!)

I do think the Internet has a lot to do with it. There are plenty of illogical ideas out there like The Secret, plus some others mentioned (Men's rights, anti-global warming, FSM). The difference is that in the bad old days if you wanted to isolate yourself from people who would tell you how silly you were being you had to move into a ranch with like thinkers. Now you can chat from the comfort of your own home. It makes being delusional easier yet tempers the experience by reducing the isolation.

I think the advent of the internet is one variable. You can now participate in some of the more emotionally attractive elements of a cult from the safety of your living room. This lack of geographical proximity and control of communication also weakens the leadership features of a traditional cult.

“in the US, rape has declined by 60% since 1993”

There was an across the board decline in violent and property crimes of almost every type in roughly the same time period of similar magnitudes. The decline in these offenses is not exceptionally great relative to other offenses as one might otherwise expect if feminism was driving the decline.

Femininism may very well be relevant, but the path by which this is the case suggests is a poor fit to the data.

The cult of Santa Muerta (St. Death) is booming among drug cartelists in Mexico at present:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Muerte

It's not a new cult, but then many of the cults that peaked in the 1970s weren't terribly new — New Age, for example, has been around in California for a long time.

///omg said…

Terrorism came into prominence in the 1980s during the Gulf Wars under Bush Senior. Religious fundamentalists or political fundamentalists in the case of suicide bombers are not classified as “cults”.

20 August 2012 12:28///

Thanks a lot dearest omg!

It is difficult, for example, indeed to think that there is a sect to blame when Palestinian leaders send their children to top Western Universities when encouraging the sons and daughters of poor fellow countrymen to become suicide bombers…

we are lucky thet you follow and comment Neuroskeptic blog since some political good sense and experience is not the forte of his commentators as a whole.

There are plenty of nutty beliefs out there, as this thread demonstrates, but that isn't what the post is talking about. Without bothering to look up the formal definition, isn't being an insular, secretive group that preys on the desperate part of the very meaning of the word “cult”?

If so, then that rules out many ideas mentioned here. Say what you will about the anti-vaxxers crowd, but I think there's little or no actual money changing hands, and it's not secretive. Same for atheism, truthers, birthers, etc. There's no movement, just a belief that's not the conventional wisdom. That doesn't make it a cult.

If I'm correct, and if genuine cults have declined, then I'd be inclined to credit the Bowling Alone hypothesis more than anything else, of a particularly Internet variety. People in general are spending less time with groups of all kinds. If people want a group that gives them co-dependency and creepy affirmation, they can find six varieties online before breakfast, but none of those can love-bomb them or cut their hair nearly as easily as in-person groups can.

Cyrus,

As a pro bono and no paternalistic adult psychiatrist I earned no money and pension rights but a large body of knowledge that escaped me when I worked in hospitals.

I discovered how “broad-mindedly” many “rational looking French people” were searching answers against suffering and illnesses -not only metal illnesses- paying good money to a very wide range of therapists.

I have to admit that I heard of an alcohol dependent man getting sober with the help of a “local stones healing cult” but it was from the woman who divorced him because she had suffered his alcohol dependance but was not able to stand the “witless adorer of stones'healing power” of a husband bringing stones in their bed and in their child's bed and spending his week-end with the cult.

When divorcing people invent things and this personal story is to be taken with a pinch of salt of course but we had criminal trials in France of sectarian activities leading to the premature death of people due to lack of medical standard cure of adults and even children.
*

omg,

What you just wrote adds weight to what Steve Sailer said…21 08 12 at6:25:

The cult of Santa Muerta (St. Death) is booming among drug cartelists in Mexico at present:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Muerte

Frightening “political stuff” we do not know enough about.

But we do not know enough about sectarian deviances like the homeopath DR Luc Jouret who in 1978opened a private practice in the city of Annemasse (Savoie).

1983: Jouret fail in an attempt to take controm of a templar order in another French district( Haute-Garonne).

1984: fondation of the ” l'Ordre du temple solaire”(OTS) for which sect the good Dr Jouret recruted up to 400 members, (mostly in Martinique, the West of France dans l'ouest de la France, Canada and Switzerland).

1994: 4 OTS' faithfulls and a baby are found assassinated in Quebec. The following day, 47 others included Dr Jouret found a violent death in Switzerland.

http://www.liberation.fr/france/0101143086-vent-d-ouest-sur-le-temple-solaire-jouret-le-gourou-de-la-secte-avait-monte-un-important-reseau-en-bretagne

PS: Actor Tom Cruise met Nicolas Sarkosy when the later was the French finance minister at the ministerial building.

http://www.ina.fr/art-et-culture/cinema/video/2646220001064/tom-cruise-a-paris-et-plateau-fin.fr.html

http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/politique/20040902.OBS6088/sarkozy-cruise-la-rencontre-polemique.html

We do have a new religious movement–it's called Apple, with Steve Jobs as the Messiah.

Sheila: I think you're right, but I'm interested in working out what, specifically, the internet did…

Ivana, urban cults fuelled by drug cartels are common in building election war chests, has been since the poppy trade in Afghanistan. For instance, in Kenya they have the “Mungiki” the godfathers being the Kikuyu elite. President Kibaki and the Mount Kenya Mafia aka MKM. Mount Kenya because Mungiki adherents face Mount Kenya to salute and undergo ritual beheadings months leading up to the elections. You can predict the trajectory of election outcomes by studying these patterns, like which constituencies were these brandings, how many etc. Sort of similar to secret societies if you may in the West. Cults have this reoccuring theme of attaining power, mindwashing a few to millions, it needs to involve blood like a ritualized killing. Pretty heavy stuff urban cults. Whether it's necessary who knows, but it happens.

omg,

You bring to the discussion interesting material and it is too rich for me to discuss it without exceeding my welcome by Neuroskeptic and have my comment removed as out of topics…

Let me just insist on the fact that some very bright and innovative people get much out of their superstitions or unconventional beliefs and human beings are very often superstitious even in the western world and among the educated persons.

Crooks and delusional leaders of dangerous sects are a different matter –with obvious difficulties in drawing the line between political opportunism in war time and bloodthirsty sects in the examples you gave us.

(The personality cult of political leaders is not new nor is their use of superstition. Just think about the Roman emperors who “became” gods after their death or the kings of France who were to reign to obey God's will and had the magic power to cure illnesses by their touch.)

To come back to my first point, Isaac Newton was also an alchemist , Niels Bohr was known as superstitious etc…
Jung believed in medium and his interest in the occult (also in the mythologies admittedly ) might have been the main protective factor against Freud's intellectual and cultural limitations.

On my second point, you do not need to research the internet as thoroughly as neuroskeptic to find a wide range of superstitions real people act upon in the Western world like:

” Numbers align for couples wanting to get married – Los Angeles Times”

I cite the article:///(…) Everybody wants 11/11/11. It's a very spiritual number,” said wedding officiant Fernando Howard. “The last couple of weeks we've had people begging: 'Can you let us in? It's a magic day. We've got to get married on that day”.///

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/12/local/la-me-eleven-eleven-weddings-20111112

No wonder that some warriors are prone to horrendous superstition when they face death in battle for an African warlord if some Californian use a “ magic number” to protect them against marital suffering!

But my main point is that dangerous sects’ leaders – some of them crooks and some other delusional psychiatric clients
recruit nowadays in the mental health sector and in the health, well-being, businesses efficiency, education sectors- alternatice therapies and antipsychiatry being rich in potential preys.

Some know how to use the internet to get new recruits without being caught, other are very local and low tech.

Several European countries have government agencies (service, safety agency etc) actively monitoring cults and potential cults. They typically report dozens of potential cults in each country.

And even then they manage to miss two major categories of modern cults. THe first category they typically overlook are the cults that mostly operate online and are pretty much undetectable by non-members. If you look around forums/websites of conspiracy theorists, NWO-fools, alien believers, “star people”, alternate truths etc. you will find them; message boards of such websites are full of cult-members scouting mentally vulnerable people that believe anything to join them…

The other major category of modern cults that is typically overlooked, are the cults that disguise themselves as “training agencies” offering motivational courses. One of the biggest of them is Avatar (http://www.avatarepc.com/). They actually manage to infiltrate larger companies and send their employees to their courses, thereby finding new members. They're one of the scariest cults as far as I'm concerned.

And then the classics are still around, the most obvious and succesful one being Scientology.

In the past few years I've had 2 of my friends being sucked up by Avatar (and paying them SHITLOADS of money) and one has somehow become involved in one of those “undetectable” cults. This person has unfortunately disappeared completely several years ago but is reported to live with other cult members somewhere in the middle of nowhere in New Zealand (he's from the Netherlands). Furthermore, I've managed to prevent a friend from being sucked up by Scientology. She was not at all aware of what Scientology was prior to that..

All of them are highly intetelligent persons that happened to come into contact with a cult while they were at their weakest, for example due to loss of a job etc.

If anything, I'd say there are more cults than there used to be. It's just that they're more fragmented and often very difficult to detect. But they're out there, trying to steal your friends' soul. Be aware.

zmmc: Very interesting, thanks for those comments.

The USA are officially in denial of any sectarian dangers for vulnerable people from some the Church of scientology 's French leaders.

If their scientologists ‘s leaders are better and more honest than some French ones or if the USA people do not care about sectarian abuses it is fine with me.

But Madeleine Albright almost created a severe diplomatic USA/French crisis in 1990 for the defense of that sect or church -as you wish-

According to a very courageous French MP and former judge, Georges Fenech, who just stepped back from being the “La Milivudes” chair ( French government committee fighting sectarian abuses):

« La France, pays laïque, et les États-Unis, qui placent sur un pied d'égalité religion et sectes, se sont heurtés au sujet de l'action de la Miviludes. Fin 1990, on avait même frôlé la crise diplomatique. Madeleine Albright, alors secrétaire d'État américaine, s'était plainte auprès de son homologue Hubert Védrine des atteintes aux libertés religieuses commises, selon elle, en France. »

http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2012/08/23/01016-20120823ARTFIG00419-fenech-les-grandes-sectes-infiltrent-les-lieux-de-pouvoir.php.

Amateurish translation of mine:

“ France, a laic country , and the USA , which put on an equal footing religions and sects, clashed about La Miviludes. At the end of 1990, we came very close to a diplomatic crisis. Madeleine Albright, then USA secretary of State, complained to Hubert Védrine (our then Foreign minister) about striking of blows to religious liberty, according to her in France. “

PS: The poor woman had made herself quite unpopular with many a French and had been the object of bad taste jokes like “Do you know why there was a war in The Balkans?” “ Because Bill Clinton was to busy having oral sex at the office when his wife was not looking, and he let Madeleine Albright ask the Balkan people if they wanted to make love or peace with her.”

After that , the scientologists made Tom Cruise their advocate in France and his visit to former president Nicolas Sarkosy then finance minister in his ministerial building stirred some public outrage.

NS was elected president a few years later. “Nobody’s perfect” all the time even on one single topic…Not even Neuroskeptic…

I am not crusading against the dangerous sectarian criminals –I am not courageous enough for that and I am not even competent in the field of that kind of mental abuses, plus I am not of a paternalistic frame of mind and I admit that religion and sects might help greatly some people – and that will be my last comment.

Please bear with that addentum then!

I had two frightening direct personal occasions to perceive “on my skin” the reality of the sectarian importance in France-apart from the journal articles about criminal law suits of sectarian abuses:

1) First in 1997 when I looked for support in any decent homeschooling parental association in France, for personal logistic and legal support, after deciding I would have to homeschooled to very bright children – for pedagogic not religious reasons- as long as needed for their well-being and academic success.

Here the “La miviludes” published a public rapport in 2009 estimating that 50 000 children were the victims of dangerous sects in France alone:

http://www.miviludes.gouv.fr/publications-de-la-miviludes/rapports-annuels/rapport-annuel-2009

(A shorter read: http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2010/10/13/01016-20101013ARTFIG00624-50000-enfants-sont-victimes-d-une-emprise-sectaire.php)

2) When I attended a French speaking “unicist homeopaths” ‘ s association meetings in SPA in 2009, I realized that although a useful tool for any reasonable doctor , homeopathy remedies were although used by crooks of the worst sort (those making money on the fear of death and illnesses of their victims) and by very sectarian minded MDs refusing to see the reality or the seriousness of some of the shortcomings of some their leaders and heads of schools.

Here again “la milivudes” worked diligently with a 2010 annual report on the sectarian abuses in the training sector in general and in particular in the unconventional medicine training sector:

http://www.miviludes.gouv.fr/publications-de-la-miviludes/rapports-annuels/rapport-annuel-2010

Errata:

1)26 August 2012 09:59 you should read
“Do you know why there was a war in The Balkans?”

“ Because Bill Clinton was to busy having oral sex at the office when his wife was not looking, and he let Madeleine Albright ask the Balkan people if they wanted to make love or war with her.”

2) 26 August 2012 12:15 You should read: ” Please bear with that addendum then!”

3) last but not least, if omg (and may be others)understood I was accusing the scientologists to have put president Sarkosy at the head of France, my writing must have been very faultly indeed.

I intended to tell that the then French Finance minister had accepted to talk about scientology with an American actor ambassador of a church (or sect as you wish) which in France had seen criminal trials of some of his leaders for separating people in distress from their money.

Re: Doreen Virtue on Wikipedia.

My mistake, there is an all new, sycophantic and apparently self-written page about her on Wiki.
Just google the words “Doreen Virtue Fraud,” that'll see you right.

And I forgot to mention in my last post; its not her main-stream stuff (books, CDs, tarot-style cards etc) that are cultish, they're just plain woo, its the group retreats, 'schools,' and other private and exclusionary/heavily policed/secret meetings which cost thousands of dollars to attend.

She runs a Peter Pan club who cares ? I'm not even going to click on that 'destiny' link mispelt.

Ivana I had a response but it must've been filtered. I'll be back when I can remember what it was. Been uber busy of late.

i would say that there have been a fair few. 'desteni' for example, or the cult around A J Miller. In order to get really famous you need allegations of serious offences such as child abuse, a mass suicide or something along those lines, and those are things that tend to turn off modern potential recruits.

Also there have been new, large, religious movements not necessarily “cults.” The international house of prayer for instance sprang up less than 20 years ago, and has spawned a global movement. The “emergent church”, the “missional church” movement, New Monasticism — all have come into being in the last 20 years and have been highly influential in their worlds, although I wouldn’t call any of them a “cult.”