RELS 225 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Aleister Crowley, Mind Control, Psychopathology
Document Summary
Anyone can be manipulated but not necessarily in the same way. Charitable groups- jim jones people"s temple", iskcon- kitchen, Age is not a predictor of joining a cult (heaven"s gate) Education is not a predictor either, lower education doesn"t make you more susceptible to joining a cult and neither does socio economic status. People who join cults feel like no one around them understands them. 100 years ago people who didn"t have social status, money etc. were the ones to join. In the 1960"s it was the privilege people that were joining, educated, affluent, families in position of relative power, they shouldn"t feel deprived. It isn"t whether a person is actually deprived its whether they feel deprived (ex. More individualism in the 1960"s, biblical world view was not enough anymore. Lofland & stark did a study on the unification church that came from. Identified 7 factors that brought a person from a possible convert to a toal convert.
