The Religious Cult Term paper

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Essay written by C.L. O'Connor

The controversy surrounding new religious movements seems to be foremost concerned with whether or not the members of these religions come of their own freewill or if they convert as a necessary and inevitable response to advanced coercion, or brainwashing techniques employed by the cult leaders.

The concept of brainwashing came into popular existence in the 1950 s as the result of attempts to try and explain the behaviour of some American GI s who defected to the Communists during the Korean War (19 Oct 1999). Many people, including some professionals, found brainwashing to be an acceptable explanation for the otherwise unexplainable behaviour. However, the brainwashing theory did nothing to explain why hundreds of other captured GI s chose to remain true to their country even at the risk of being tortured. It could not accurately account for the behaviour of a select few GI s when it did not offer any explanation for the behaviour of the majority.

Since the 1950 s, the concept of brainwashing has faded in and out of public consciousness with a tendency to flare up again in the face of public controversy. In the 1960 s and 1970 s the brainwashing debate again took center stage, this time in an attempt to explain the behaviour of so-called radicals who left behind a normal life and opted instead for a cult existence.

Although scholars of new religious movements would agree that religious groups often have substantial influence over their followers, they would also argue that the influence exerted in "cults" is not very different from influence that is present in practically every arena of life, (19 Oct 1999). Mainstream religions also exercise influence over their members concerning matters such as lifestyle choices, familial relations and monetary donations. Furthermore, most social scientists concede that some degree of influence is inevitable in each culture and facet of life even outside the arena of religious choice.

Despite the fact that there do not appear to be any studies that conclusively provide evidence of brainwashing as a legitimate explanation for joining an NRM, and in spite of the many studies that have refuted that brainwashing defense successfully, the brainwashing theory continues to be debated regularly. The concept of brainwashing is still often relied on to account for behaviour that is otherwise culturally unjustifiable.

If brainwashing is not an appropriate explanation for the conversion of people to NRM s than what is? A common theme on the anti-cult side of the conversion debate is the argument that members are, to varying degrees, predisposed to becoming cult members. This supposed predisposition is commonly thought to be a product of depression,...

and Consulted
Dawson, L.L. (1998). Comprehending cults. Don Mills: Oxford University Press.
Dawson, L.L. ed. (1996). Cults in context. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press.
The Brainwashing Controversy. (19 Oct 1999) http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/ jkh8x/soc257/cultsect/brainwashing.htm (29 May 2000).
Brainwashing and the Cults: The Rise and Fall of a Theory. (10 Dec 1999) http://www.cesnur.org/testi/melton.htm (2 June 2000).
Paloutzian, R.F. (1996). Invitation to the psychology of religion. (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. You should cite this paper as follows:

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