Cult Deaths

There is no single agreed-upon academic definition for the word cult, although it typically refers to a minority religious group, possibly with a charismatic leader, whose beliefs and practices are at variance from those of the majority culture. In popular parlance, the word cult is used to refer to any minority religious group that provokes concern, anxiety, and fear. Much of the contemporary anxiety about cults and minority religions is related to several well-publicized cases of suicide, murder, and terrorism on the part of a few religious groups in the final quarter of the 20th century. Incidences of murder and suicide involving members of minority religious movements are often described as “cult deaths.”

The study of cult deaths developed in reaction to these violent deaths involving minority religions. Scholars in a variety of disciplines identified a need to examine, in an objective manner, the reasons why several minority religions had turned violent. The media reports of these incidents of apocalyptic violence tended to be biased, often depicting the groups concerned as “evil cults” with manipulative and “deranged” leaders who “brainwashed” [Page 244]converts. As a result, the general public assumed that new religious movements (NRMs) were essentially dangerous and violent. Thus, in the opinion of many analysts, NRMs were groups that should be controlled or even prohibited. An anticult movement developed with the goal of protecting potential converts from, in their opinion, being coerced or even “brainwashed” into joining cults.

Approaches to the study of cult deaths have included theoretical analysis, in-depth case studies, and comparative analyses of the empirical research. Such research has focused on exploring predisposing factors that may turn NRMs toward violence. The rest of this entry addresses these issues in greater detail.

Historic Overview

In 1978, over 900 members of the Peoples Temple, including over 200 children, were killed or committed suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. In 1993, 74 members of the Branch Davidians, a Seventh-day Adventist sect, died as a result of a 51-day standoff with the U.S. government at Waco, Texas. Between 1994 and 1997, around 74 members of the secretive Order of the Solar Temple died in a series of ritualized murders or suicides in Quebec, Switzerland, and France. Between 1990 and 1995 the Japanese NRM Aum Shinrikyo carried out a series of attacks on the public, culminating in a Sarin gas attack in the Tokyo underground on March 20, 1995: Around 5,500 commuters were injured, and 12 were killed. In 1997, 38 members of Heaven's Gate committed suicide after their leader convinced them that a spaceship (supposedly hidden behind the passing comet Hale-Bopp) would rescue their souls from the pending destruction of planet Earth. In early 2000, around 780 members of The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, a Catholic splinter group based in Uganda, also died in a series of murder-suicides. Put in perspective, this means that around 3.5#x0025; of NRMs known to the British information center have turned violent.

Problems with the Term Cult

In academic circles the term cult is used in a technical sense with no evaluative connotations. It is sometimes defined as an organized system of worship focused on a person or an object of reverence. Today, however, it is most commonly used in derogatory ways. In popular parlance it can refer to religious groups that are seen as deviating from the mainstream and as dangerous movements whose leaders manipulate innocent converts into committing illegal and unusual acts that they would otherwise never consider committing. The media and the anticult movement frequently describe this process as brainwashing, a term which, like the term cult, is generally avoided by scholars. Various studies have shown that converts join and leave NRMs of their own volition, albeit within an environment of sometimes considerable influence. From an academic perspective the concept of brainwashing is little more than a way of giving a name to a process for which families or friends of converts fail to find other explanations. Converts often dramatically change their lifestyles and beliefs (by, e.g., adopting a new name, changing their diet, living communally, giving up material belongings), and families and friends cannot accept that the convert could have changed to such an extent without having been manipulated against his or her will. A common explanation has been that leaders of NRMs exert irresistible and irreversible mind control techniques over potential converts. Several studies have shown that the majority of NRMs have high turnover rates, thus indicating that their techniques are neither irresistible nor irreversible.

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