Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1991, Page 12
Why Cultic Groups Develop and Flourish:
A Historian’s Perspective
Natalie Isser, Ph.D.
Pennsylvania State University
Ogontz Campus
Abstract
A variety of religious or secular sects and cults were a continuing phenomenon in
the United States. Many of these religious movements, especially the more deviant
ones, were dependent upon strong charismatic leadership and syncretic belief
systems embracing a combination of current ideals and sentiments. Sometimes the
outcast cult could, with time, become a sect, and even enter the mainstream
religions. The best known of this group would be the Mormon Church. The
proliferation of religious, quasi-political, and nontraditional organizations was much
more prevalent in the United States because of its favorable physical terrain,
religious pluralism, and social mobility. Many Native Americans and Blacks founded
cults, embodying both their ancestral traditions and Christian values. These cults
provided a useful way of confronting the hostile dominant culture. Contemporary
cults like those of the past have created opposition because their religious policies
and proselytization techniques threaten prevailing traditions. The power of
contemporary media has abetted these missionary efforts but has also provided the
means to discredit them. Though some of these cults have faded from view, new
ones will emerge as a challenge to the existing culture.
The sudden efflorescence of cults that appeared in the tumultuous decade of 1965-75, the
glare of unfavorable publicity that culminated in the Jonestown tragedy in 1978, and the
continued prevalence of religious debates over church and state issues among various sects
and fundamentalist Christian evangelicals have renewed academic interest in religious issues.
Religious beliefs and institutions formed an integral part of man‟s experience. They provided
transcendental explanations for existence and the rituals and rites that codified and civilized
human behavior, further enhancing the maintenance of civility and order. More significant,
religious rites marked the passages of life: birth, adolescence, marriage, death while
religious festivals celebrated the fruits of nature itself. Religious commitment satisfied human
psychological needs by giving reassurance and comfort in periods of stress it helped
individuals deal with the prospect of death and frequently gave parental imagery and
leadership that brought help and love.
Thus a variety of beliefs, an enormous number of cults, and the "shelter" they provided for
the confused, depressed, and bewildered was a continuing phenomenon in the history of
Western civilization. Indeed, the emergence of new and sometimes challenging religious
systems was a reaction by some to an ever-changing, inhospitable environment that
frequently confronted the communities people lived in. Besides, change of religious belief was
also a way for the young to rebel against the restrictions and inhibitions of their parents. The
result was that with the triumph of Christianity and the establishment of new state religions,
the notion of proselytization, or the need to spread the Christian (and the Moslem) truth,
became, unlike in the Far East, a significant and enduring part of the Western tradition.
During the Protestant Reformation the number of sects vying for both government support
and community adhesion multiplied, further intensifying the spread of preaching and
evangelical fervor. Thus while many perceive contemporary cults as a twentieth-century

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1991, Page 13
phenomenon, cults‟ recruitment methods --whether aggressive or more conventional --are
deeply rooted as an integral part of the Western Christian mainstream religious experience1.
The subsequent emergence of secularism and materialism in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries did not supplant religions. Indeed, despite the seeming triumphant spread of
secular humanism and the weakening of some mainstream religious institutions in the modern
period, there appeared a multitude of new religious movements (some quasi-political),
missionaries, and alternative religious cults in both the United States and Europe. The failure
of modern secularism to satisfy important emotional, social, and psychological needs meant
that the void was filled by a plethora of peculiar religious and occasionally secular
organizations led by charismatic leaders.
Definitional Issues
The earmarks of past and contemporary cults and fundamentalist sects were that they had
common characteristics, whether they were manipulative, self-seeking, or idealistic in
purpose. Cults, distinguished from sects, were not part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Sects
were dissenting or schismatic groups organized in some form of opposition to the established
mainstream religious institution. Cults depended upon strong, charismatic leadership and their
beliefs were syncretic, combining a variety of current ideals and sentiments. The cult leader
generally made claims to divinity, either as godhead or messiah, and therefore projected
omniscience. Typically the leader was a powerful personality, sometimes brilliant, and often a
master of psychological manipulation, flattery, threats, and guilt2. Members gave total
obedience, loyalty, and allegiance. Rituals and dogmas were developed into a theological
system, with a sense of asceticism and economic commitment (fund-raising or tithing).3
The glue that fastened the group was obedience and hierarchy, both serving to strengthen the
prophet‟s enormous hold upon the imaginations, loyalties, and affections of the disciples.
Followers dedicated their lives to their leader, to the cult community, and to the dogmas that
were delineated. All religious ideals of these believers depended upon the hopes, fears, and
ambitions of the leadership. Communal groups committed their members to some type of
group living, investment of time and/or property, and often total immersion in an alternative
life-style. Very often, depending upon the nature of beliefs, these cults were rejected by the
majority. Likewise, cultists rejected their former lives. For example, followers of Purnell in the
Koreshan cult or Joseph Smith of the Mormons revered their leaders and rejected their
families and former communities to accept the demands and discipline of their new cults.4
Cults could and did become sects. Sects that were originally heretical groups, such as the
Salvation Army, the Church of God, the Church of Nazarene, and the Jehovah‟s Witnesses,
were nominally Christian but separated from the established churches. They, too, often had
charismatic leaders, but their preachers generally did not assume godlike pretensions.
Embodying doctrines borrowed from prevailing formulas and philosophies, some cults blended
with existing Christian principles and as their leaders died they became sects, such as
Christian Science and the Mormons. On the other hand, others, such as Scientology,
Theosophy, and Krishna Consciousness, have remained cults.
American and Western European Experiences
Differences
The American and western European religious experiences, though sharing similar liberal,
intellectual, and religious values, differed for many reasons. The first of these reasons lay in
the historical development of the United States, a country geographically separated from the
social rigidities of inheritance and land ownership and from the stifling control of more rooted
European religious and political traditions. Never did American colonists and later the citizens
of the new country tolerate the notion of hereditary landed aristocracy with special political or