5 VOLUME 6 |ISSUE 3 |2015
P
eople who contact ICSA often ask, “Is X
a cult?” In its first form as the American
Family Foundation, and now as the
International Cultic Studies Association, ICSA
has tried to provide helpful perspectives on
this vexed and challenging issue.
Although ICSA’s website and member
e-library have information on about 1,000
groups, questioners have been frustrated
when they cannot find a list of “cults” on
the website however, we maintain that it is
more important to understand why certain
interpersonal dynamics may be harmful than
to label a group a cult or a person a cultic
leader. As the writers who follow demonstrate,
the word cult, while useful, may also be
“thought terminating” because it may conjure
up stereotypes that interfere with productive
inquiry and accurate perception.
We are proud to publish here a representative
selection of papers, starting with an essay
coauthored by our longtime former president,
attorney Herbert Rosedale, more than fifteen
years ago, and concluding with an essay by our
current president, Steve Eichel, completed this
year. The essay “What Is a Cult?” by Professor
Russell Bradshaw (2014) is part of a collection
of basic papers on cultic issues developed
by ICSA’s New York Educational Outreach
Committee. —Editors
ichael D. Langone, Russell H. Bradshaw, and Steve K. D. Eichel
fining Cult
P
eople who contact ICSA often ask, “Is X
a cult?” In its first form as the American
Family Foundation, and now as the
International Cultic Studies Association, ICSA
has tried to provide helpful perspectives on
this vexed and challenging issue.
Although ICSA’s website and member
e-library have information on about 1,000
groups, questioners have been frustrated
when they cannot find a list of “cults” on
the website however, we maintain that it is
more important to understand why certain
interpersonal dynamics may be harmful than
to label a group a cult or a person a cultic
leader. As the writers who follow demonstrate,
the word cult, while useful, may also be
“thought terminating” because it may conjure
up stereotypes that interfere with productive
inquiry and accurate perception.
We are proud to publish here a representative
selection of papers, starting with an essay
coauthored by our longtime former president,
attorney Herbert Rosedale, more than fifteen
years ago, and concluding with an essay by our
current president, Steve Eichel, completed this
year. The essay “What Is a Cult?” by Professor
Russell Bradshaw (2014) is part of a collection
of basic papers on cultic issues developed
by ICSA’s New York Educational Outreach
Committee. —Editors
ichael D. Langone, Russell H. Bradshaw, and Steve K. D. Eichel
fining Cult
