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How do cult members act?: Difference between revisions
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{{Cult}} | |||
=Who joins a cult?= | |||
What are the reasons people are attracted to a cult? What factors make some people more vulnerable to cult involvement than others? | |||
#The target population for most recruitment efforts by cults is young adults. Persons in this age group are frequently experiencing changes in their lives and are in various stages of transition. Cult converts are usually ordinary people who are experiencing specific and transitory difficulties in life. They may be disenchanted with a sociopolitical cause, suffering from academic frustration, or encountering career uncertainty or job dissatisfaction. There may be a recent history of disruption in relationships, such as a breakup with a boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse. Typically they tend to come from middle- and upper-middle-class surroundings. | |||
#Prospective cult members are also individuals who can be characterized as seekers—people who are searching for religious experiences and for truth. The person who joins a cult often has a nominal religious background or no religious background. Those individuals who are attracted to aberrational Christian groups frequently are young Christians lacking in discernment skills or members of evangelical churches who become dissatisfied or disillusioned with their traditional church life. | |||
#Emotional and interpersonal factors predispose some people to cult membership. Among the converts to cults are those individuals who show some evidence of developmental and emotional problems over time. This type of recruit also has frequently experienced some kind of disjuncture in family relations, such as conflict with parents. | |||
#Cults appeal to persons who are experiencing a sense of personal inadequacy, loneliness, or disappointment with life. There are also those individuals who exhibit strong dependency needs and who are attracted to the totalistic and communal groups in which decision making is minimal and life’s basic necessities are provided. Contact with the larger society is regulated and the demands of conventional existence can be by-passed or at least deferred. | |||
#Cults also appeal to people who have a strongly idealistic orientation. Such people sincerely desire to be a part of a group or organization that is focused on change—personal transformation or societal change. To join such a group is to affiliate with a cause, to become linked with a network of true believers who are determined to achieve their objectives.<ref>R. Enroth, “Cults,” ed. David G. Benner and Peter C. Hill, Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology & Counseling, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 302.</ref> | |||
Most cults are groups that are outside the mainstream of the prevailing, established religious tradition of any given society. Cult members view themselves as a minority group who share a common vision and who are dedicated to a person, an ideology, or a cause.<ref>R. Enroth, “Cults,” ed. David G. Benner and Peter C. Hill, Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology & Counseling, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 302.</ref> | |||
=How do message followers act?= | =How do message followers act?= | ||
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Can you say goodbye to William Branham and move fully into Jesus Christ? If not, then he did not truly lead you to Jesus Christ. | Can you say goodbye to William Branham and move fully into Jesus Christ? If not, then he did not truly lead you to Jesus Christ. | ||
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