6 ICSA TODAY
ON USING THE TERM CULT
By Herbert L. Rosedale and Michael D. Langone
Even though we each have studied cults and educated people
about this subject for more than twenty years, neither of
us has ever felt completely comfortable with the term cult.
No other term, however, serves more effectively the linked
educational and research aims of ICSA (International Cultic
Studies Association, founded as American Family Foundation
in 1979), the organization that we serve as President
(Rosedale) and Executive Director (Langone). To help others
who have asked questions about the term cult, we here offer
some thoughts on the definition and use of this term.
Review of Definitions
According to the Compact Edition of the Oxford English
Dictionary (1971), the term cult originally referred to
worship reverential homage rendered to a divine
being or beings ...a particular form or system of
religious worship especially in reference to its
external rites and ceremonies ...devotion or homage
to a particular person or thing.
More recently, the term has taken on additional connotations:
3 :A religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious...
4 :A system for the cure of disease based on dogma
set forth by its promulgator...
5 a. great devotion to a person, idea, object,
movement, or work... b. a usually small group of
people characterized by such devotion (Merriam-
Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, 1994)
Robbins’s (1988) review of recent sociological contributions to
the study of cults identifies four definitional perspectives:
a) cults as dangerous, authoritarian groups
b) cults as culturally innovative or transcultural
groups
c) cults as loosely structured protoreligions
d) Stark and Bainbridge’s (1985) subtypology that
distinguishes among audience cults (members
seek to receive information—e.g., through a
lecture or tape series), client cults (members seek
some specific benefit—e.g., psychotherapy,
spiritual guidance), and cult movements
(organizations that demand a high level of
commitment from members). The Stark and
Bainbridge typology relates to their finding that
cult membership increases as church membership
decreases.
Rutgers University professor Benjamin Zablocki (1997) says
that sociologists often distinguish cult from church, sect, and
denomination. Cults are innovative, fervent groups. If they
become accepted into the mainstream, cults, in his view,
lose their fervor and become more organized and integrated
into the community they become churches. When people
within churches become dissatisfied and break off into fervent
splinter groups, the new groups are called sects. As sects
become more stolid and integrated into the community,
they become denominations. Zablocki defines a cult as
“an ideological organization held together by charismatic
relationships and demanding total commitment.” According
to Zablocki, cults are at high risk of becoming abusive to
members, in part because members’ adulation of charismatic
leaders contributes to those leaders becoming corrupted by
the power they seek and are accorded.
Definitions proposed at various times by associates
of ICSA tend to presume the manifestation of what is
potential in Zablocki’s definition. These definitions tend to
emphasize elements of authoritarian structure, deception,
and manipulation, and the fact that groups may be
psychotherapeutic, political, or commercial, as well as
religious. One of the more commonly quoted definitions of
cult was articulated at an ICSA/UCLA Wingspread Conference
on Cultism in 1985:
Cult (totalist type): A group or movement exhibiting
a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some
person, idea, or thing and employing unethically
manipulative techniques of persuasion and control
(e.g., isolation from former friends and family,
debilitation, use of special methods to heighten
suggestibility and subservience, powerful group
pressures, information management, suspension of
individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total
dependency on the group and fear of leaving it…),
designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders,
to the actual or possible detriment of members, their
families, or the community. (West &Langone, 1986,
pp. 119–120)
Because this and related definitions imply high levels of
psychological manipulation, many students of the field have
associated cults with the concept of thought reform (Lifton,
1961 Ofshe &Singer, 1986 Singer &Ofshe, 1990). Although
there are many similarities between these concepts, a cult
does not necessarily have to be characterized by thought
reform, nor does a thought-reform program necessarily have
to be a cult. Nevertheless, the two seem to go together often
enough that many people mistakenly see them as necessarily
linked.
…no scientific “test”
incontrovertibly establishes whether
or not a group is indeed a cult.
ON USING THE TERM CULT
By Herbert L. Rosedale and Michael D. Langone
Even though we each have studied cults and educated people
about this subject for more than twenty years, neither of
us has ever felt completely comfortable with the term cult.
No other term, however, serves more effectively the linked
educational and research aims of ICSA (International Cultic
Studies Association, founded as American Family Foundation
in 1979), the organization that we serve as President
(Rosedale) and Executive Director (Langone). To help others
who have asked questions about the term cult, we here offer
some thoughts on the definition and use of this term.
Review of Definitions
According to the Compact Edition of the Oxford English
Dictionary (1971), the term cult originally referred to
worship reverential homage rendered to a divine
being or beings ...a particular form or system of
religious worship especially in reference to its
external rites and ceremonies ...devotion or homage
to a particular person or thing.
More recently, the term has taken on additional connotations:
3 :A religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious...
4 :A system for the cure of disease based on dogma
set forth by its promulgator...
5 a. great devotion to a person, idea, object,
movement, or work... b. a usually small group of
people characterized by such devotion (Merriam-
Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, 1994)
Robbins’s (1988) review of recent sociological contributions to
the study of cults identifies four definitional perspectives:
a) cults as dangerous, authoritarian groups
b) cults as culturally innovative or transcultural
groups
c) cults as loosely structured protoreligions
d) Stark and Bainbridge’s (1985) subtypology that
distinguishes among audience cults (members
seek to receive information—e.g., through a
lecture or tape series), client cults (members seek
some specific benefit—e.g., psychotherapy,
spiritual guidance), and cult movements
(organizations that demand a high level of
commitment from members). The Stark and
Bainbridge typology relates to their finding that
cult membership increases as church membership
decreases.
Rutgers University professor Benjamin Zablocki (1997) says
that sociologists often distinguish cult from church, sect, and
denomination. Cults are innovative, fervent groups. If they
become accepted into the mainstream, cults, in his view,
lose their fervor and become more organized and integrated
into the community they become churches. When people
within churches become dissatisfied and break off into fervent
splinter groups, the new groups are called sects. As sects
become more stolid and integrated into the community,
they become denominations. Zablocki defines a cult as
“an ideological organization held together by charismatic
relationships and demanding total commitment.” According
to Zablocki, cults are at high risk of becoming abusive to
members, in part because members’ adulation of charismatic
leaders contributes to those leaders becoming corrupted by
the power they seek and are accorded.
Definitions proposed at various times by associates
of ICSA tend to presume the manifestation of what is
potential in Zablocki’s definition. These definitions tend to
emphasize elements of authoritarian structure, deception,
and manipulation, and the fact that groups may be
psychotherapeutic, political, or commercial, as well as
religious. One of the more commonly quoted definitions of
cult was articulated at an ICSA/UCLA Wingspread Conference
on Cultism in 1985:
Cult (totalist type): A group or movement exhibiting
a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some
person, idea, or thing and employing unethically
manipulative techniques of persuasion and control
(e.g., isolation from former friends and family,
debilitation, use of special methods to heighten
suggestibility and subservience, powerful group
pressures, information management, suspension of
individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total
dependency on the group and fear of leaving it…),
designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders,
to the actual or possible detriment of members, their
families, or the community. (West &Langone, 1986,
pp. 119–120)
Because this and related definitions imply high levels of
psychological manipulation, many students of the field have
associated cults with the concept of thought reform (Lifton,
1961 Ofshe &Singer, 1986 Singer &Ofshe, 1990). Although
there are many similarities between these concepts, a cult
does not necessarily have to be characterized by thought
reform, nor does a thought-reform program necessarily have
to be a cult. Nevertheless, the two seem to go together often
enough that many people mistakenly see them as necessarily
linked.
…no scientific “test”
incontrovertibly establishes whether
or not a group is indeed a cult.
