Cults Essay Research Paper On November 18 free essay sample

Cults Essay, Research Paper On November 18, 1978, in a cleared-out spot of the Guyanese jungle, Reverend Jim Jones ordered the 911 members of his flock to kill themselves by imbibing a cyanide potion, and they did. It seems cultists were brainwashed by this megalomaniac Jones, who had named their jungle small town after himself and held them as practical slaves, if non populating living deads. Jones himself was found dead. He # 8217 ; d shooting himself in the caput, or person else had shot him. Is it plausible that more than nine 100 people took their ain lives volitionally, merely because he told them to? This paper will analyze facets of certain spiritual groups around the universe that have shocked us with similar types of behaviour. Most of these groups have been categorized into what we refer to as cults. While most of these new spiritual groups are highly inactive in their methodological analysis, it is my nonsubjective to look at those that have gone outside the boundaries of our norms and done such things as mass self-destruction and Acts of the Apostless of terrorist act. I will seek to understand how the leaders of these groups are able to carry members to give up all of their ownerships and in some instances their lives. What causes people to take themselves from their occupations, and households? A cult is any group of people who surround themselves around a strong authorization figure. Cults, like many other groups, effort to spread out their influence for the intents of power or money. However, to accomplish these terminals, destructive cults employ a powerful mixture of influence and misrepresentation over members and new recruits. Using methods such as brainwashing, thought reform, and mind control. A successful transition into a destructive cult removes a individual # 8217 ; s former individuality 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 individuality is created. However one time a member of the group, any divergence from the cult leader # 8217 ; s instructions is purely out. Individuality is suppressed, and capable to fear and intuition of everyone around in the group. What could do people to fall in such groups when it is common cognition that these groups are known to travel against the norms of our society? Many of those who study these groups say that people tend to be more susceptible to use in times of major alteration and crisis. During the 1960s there was an detonation of these new spiritual groups such as the Hare Krishna and Transcendental Meditation. A decennary subsequently, the human possible motion emerged, learning self-awareness and consciousness enlargement. Groups with soi-disant s like Charles Manson, David Koresh, and Marshall Applewhite have flourished, learning impending day of reckoning, utilizing mixtures from Christianity, millennialism and even science fiction. Most of those who join these groups, do non fall in them with the purpose of going a cultist, they are normally seeking a new spiritual group, or a self-help group, looking for some betterment in their lives. It is the group that they join that drama on the single # 8217 ; s insecurities and giving them some sense of order and a ground for their being in the universe. There have been many spiritual groups that have caught the medias attending with their aberrant behaviour such as the members of Jonestown. Here are some other illustrations that will exemplify the complete laterality that the leaders were able to keep over the members of the cult. David Koresh # 8217 ; s Religious group, known as the Davidian is one of the more familiar cuts during the past decennary. On February 28, 1993, Storm Troopers of the ATF tried to come in the Branch Davidian compound in the outskirts of Waco, Texas, where David Koresh and his followings had set up their oasis. The compound was stockpiled with arms that were to be used for a holy war that the had claimed would be coming shortly. David and his followings vowed there would be no resignation. For 51 yearss at that place was a draw between the cult, and the ATF. The Judgment Day prophesier promised to convey forth an apocalypse for all those with him in the compound. When the ordeal over 90 people were dead. Many of the subsisters blame the U.S authorities for their onslaught on the compound and have since launched a million dollar case. Marshall Applewhite believed that a UFO would come to the planet and pick up him and his followings. When the ship did non get when expected he and 39 of his followings committed self-destruction with the cult belief that they would lift to run into a infinite ship in the sky How could 39 intelligent people be so misled by a baffled cult leader anticipations seemed destined to neer turn out? The group known as the Heaven Gaters died in three displacements over a three-day period. 15 cultists died the first twenty-four hours, 15 the 2nd and the staying nine the 3rd twenty-four hours. As one set of cultist ingested the toxicant, a deadly dosage of Phenobarbital assorted in with pudding and/or apple sauce and chased with a shooting of vodka, they would lie down and another cultist would utilize a plastic bag to rush up the death. A scarily anal-retentive mass self-destruction, the cultist would clean up after each unit of ammunition of killing. Before the last two killed themselves, the y took out the rubbish go forthing the rented sign of the zodiac in perfect order. Desiring to be helpful even after dead, all organic structures had some kind of designation. Queerly, though, they besides had five-dollar measure and alteration in their pockets a nd little bags neatly tucked under the fingerstalls and beds. Applewhite was non merely able to convert his members that self-destruction was their lone option, before this he had all of the work forces castrate themselves, in order to stamp down their sexual desires. Exemplifying the complete control he had over his followings. Charles Manson, the boy of a teenage, bisexual, alcoholic, cocotte was the poster-boy of institutional life. Before he was 35, he had spent more than half of his life incarcerated During the late 1960 # 8217 ; s he built himself a hareem of immature adult females by praying on the castawaies of society. At its highest degree his cult had over 30 immature adult females who truly believed that he was god. With an uneven reading of the Beatles # 8217 ; song # 8220 ; Helter Skelter # 8221 ; Charles believed that a war of the races was coming in which the inkinesss would win. However one time this war was over the inkinesss would necessitate person to demo them what to make, and Charles would be the true leader of the new universe. During his reign Charles had his members commit nine slayings. Who # 8217 ; s ferociousness still shock us today? Even during his test members were outside of the courthouse carving Hakenkreuz in their brows, in order to mime their leader. The Order of the Solar Temple is the closest illustration that I have been able to happen. This group came to visible radiation on October 5, 1994, when 53 members committed murder-suicide at the same time in Switzerland and Canada. The two known leaders of the group, Luc Jouret, a Doctor, and Joseph di Mambro, a affluent man of affairs, were among the dead in Switzerland. Research workers have been seeking to happen out who took over from the Jouret and Di Mambro. Gallic constabularies say the new leader could be Michel Tabachnika, a Swiss orchestra music director. The music director has denied imperativeness studies that he is a cult member, nevertheless, his married woman died in the 1994 murder-suicide rite in the Swiss small town of Cheiry. The cult seems to give great importance to the Sun. Their ardent ritual murder-suicides are meant to take members of the religious order to a new universe on the star # 8220 ; Sirius. # 8221 ; To help with the trip, several of the victims, including some kids, are shot in the caput, asphyxiated with black plastic bags and/or poisoned. Luc and Joseph wrote, in a missive delivered after their deceases that they were # 8220 ; go forthing this Earth to happen a new dimension of truth and absolution, far from the lip services of this universe A 2nd mass self-destruction ritual occurred about a hebdomad before Christmas in 1995. On December 23, on a distant tableland of the Gallic Alps constabularies found 16 charred organic structures arranged in a star formation with their pess indicating to the ashes of a fire. Like the rites of 1994, they all died by knifing, suffocation, hiting and/or toxic condition. Their organic structures were burned to a chip as portion of a cleansing ritual. A hebdomad before detecting the organic structures, Swiss and Gallic governments suspected the worst when the 16 cult members disappeared from their places. Some left behind handwritten notes showing their purposes of perpetrating mass self-destruction. One of the notes stated: # 8220 ; Death does non be, it is pure semblance. May we, in our interior life, find each other forever. # 8221 ; Two of the dead were the married womans and boy of Gallic ski title-holder and millionaire oculus wear maker, Jean Vuarnet. In March 23, 1997 five more dead organic structures were found in a burned house owned by Didier Queze, a member of the Order, in St. Casimir, Quebec. The organic structures of four cultists, Didier, her hubby and another twosome, were found in a bed upstairs positioned in what may hold been intended to be the form of the cross. The female parent of Didier was found dead on a couch downstairs with a plastic bag over her caput. Unlike earlier self-destructions in which grownups killed their kids, the three teen-age kids of the cultist twosome were spared In all of these instances it has been shown that these people were clearly moving out of their normal behaviour. But how is it possible for these s to take take such control over there members. Many feel that the modern cults provide its participants with a degree of societal support and credence that compares with what they may happen in their atomic household. Cult activity, is frequently which is defined as direct contact with the Godhead, bring forthing a sense of belonging to something profound and of being a person. The modern cult may be viewed as a group that gives its members an individuality and a sense of significance in a universe that has someway failed to supply them these things. With over 3000 destructive cults in the U.S. claiming over 4 million members, it seems that there may merely be more problem to come with these new spiritual organisations starting up about out of nowhere. Their leaders seem to pray on the vulnerable and lonely. Possibly doing them to act in a mode that would non be in their normal behaviour. I am non proposing that all of these spiritual groups are menace to our society. In fact I believe that these self-help groups are an plus to the people that they help. However problem arises when the leaders of these groups lose control, demanding complete and entire obeisance. It is rather apparent that one individual # 8217 ; s cult may be another individual # 8217 ; s faith, and history has proven that yesterday # 8217 ; s periphery group may be tomorrow # 8217 ; s mainstream faith. All of our popular spiritual groups one time started every bit out as a cult at one clip or another.