Cults
Practices
Sex Magic
One of the ways they generate energy
Keeping Secrets
Believers are told things that they are not allowed to tell others.
Animal Sacrifice
One specific cult:
Branch Davidian Cult
Leader is David Koresh
Was destroyed during a U.S. government siege in 1993
Was active in a mainstream Christian church before he was thrown out for "negatively influencing" some of the church's younger members.
Definition: Cults are a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.
Formation and structures
Members of cults are all ages and all personality types
Michael Langone a psychologist who specializes in cults identified some traits of a person a cult may recruit:
Unassertiveness- a reluctance to day no or question authority.
Gullibility- a tendency to believe what someone says.
Naive idealism- a blind belief that everyone is good.
They "brainwash" the members so they do not leave the cult or "brainwash" them into joining the cult
Leaders
There is no cult without a powerful leader
Can be more than one
Charismatic leader: A leader who has the ability to get epople to follow him without thinking about it
has complete control over his followers.
there is no questioning his decisions and he is not accountable to no one part of the cult.