In the 1960s and 1970s, non-traditional beliefs spread in various segments of the population in the United States and Western Europe. The process of creating new idols and new doctrines was accelerated. Unusual groups arose, and different communities, fraternities, and communes were created. The ranks of those professing beliefs alternative to the “official” religions multiplied, and more often than not, they were openly hostile to them.
American researchers have noticed an increase in the number of non-traditional teachings in the pre-war period. In 1936 a book entitled Chaos of Cults was published in large circulation, from which the American reader could for the first time get a holistic view of the nature, doctrines and forms of distribution of religious new formations. The book was written by Karel van Baalen, pastor of the Christian Reformed Church. The unconcealed hostility to “cults” is combined in the book with a detailed analysis of the doctrines of dozens of different religious movements. Rejecting cults as contrary to the Bible, van Baalen at the same time linked the emergence of new religious movements solely to the weakening of traditional religions. He urged us to remember that cults are the unpaid bills of the church.
Immediately after World War II researchers note the emergence of 500 to 600 new religious groups. Over 100 of these belonged to ethnic religions and recruited followers exclusively from small, closed population groups. They spoke their own language, thereby creating barriers to the spread of the faith outside the group.
In the 1950s and 1960s, numerous groups emerged in the United States whose beliefs and practices radically diverged from the doctrinal norms of traditional religions. In addition, such groups urged their followers to break with established social ties, to begin to live anew, fully entrusting their destiny to the “prophets of the new truth.
The noisy new religious formations immediately attracted a great deal of media interest. Reports about cults with exotic names and their leaders proclaiming themselves messiahs and deities were broadcast on television and published in the most authoritative and large-circulation periodicals.
The emphasis was on exposing the sophisticated methods by which people were lured into cults. They reported on the cult leaders’ vast wealth obtained through corrupt means such as extortion, deceitful promises, and promises to people who believed them.
Such reports shaped American public perceptions of new religious movements. They were supplemented by extensive denunciatory information from denominational circles, mainly Protestant denominations. Researchers studying the nature of new religious movements and the specific manifestations of the phenomenon disagreed with these stereotypes. Their published works note that the real number of adherents of new religious groups is significantly lower than media reports. Often, the adherents of these groups were counted as attendees of a seminar held by a “cult. Only the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) were found to have followers throughout the United States. All other religious formations have spread only in some parts of the country. Of the groups that emerged in the 20th century, only the American Muslim Mission has more than 10,000 followers. The Church of Unification (followers of Moon’s teachings), which has been the most frequent focus of media attention, has no more than 7,000-8,000 followers.
American scholars have called for objective reflection on the nature of new religious movements and have questioned the validity of the “cult epidemic” sweeping America. In their book Strange Cults, sociologists D. Bromley and E. Schoop note that it is impossible to say exactly how many cults are active in the United States and how many people are involved in them, but, at any rate, the real number of followers of the six most famous new religious movements is much smaller than the data appearing in the media.
Other U.S. researchers have estimated that in 1995 there were some 600 new religious movements in the United States, with between 150,000 and 200,000 followers.
Other information on the scale of the spread of new religious movements can be found in the publications of American researchers R. Stark and W. Bainbridge. Using methods of comprehensive statistical analysis, they come to the following conclusions: In 1985, there were 417 sects and 501 religious movements in the USA. About 7 million Americans, or 3 percent of the country’s population, are involved in new religions.
These figures differ little from those of a Gallup poll conducted in 1987: 2% of Americans said they belonged to other religions. It is noteworthy that young people were more receptive to new faiths (5%).
Contrary to claims of widespread enthusiasm for new religious movements, sociological research has revealed that such movements reach a fairly narrow segment of the U.S. population. For example, Eastern-oriented religious movements are mainly represented by young people (18-25 years old), while other age groups have found immunity to Eastern exoticism. At the same time, followers of oriental cults and large associations with a different doctrinal orientation mostly belong to the middle classes. Universities have become a favorite recruiting ground for new religious movements by missionary groups.
Researchers such as R. Melton, G. K. Nelson, T. Robbins, R. Stark, and W. Haack attribute the emergence of this phenomenon to the social ills of the modern world, economic and environmental crises, and demographic shifts in the 1960s and 1970s, which led to an increase in the proportion of young people in the U.S. population structure.
Studying the reasons for the spread of oriental cults in the mid-20th century, American scientists pointed to the connection of this phenomenon with the wide emigration to the United States from Asian countries observed in the second half of the 20th century. Already then, Buddhist and Hindu missionaries appeared in West Coast cities. In the 1960s, immigrants from India, Japan, and Southeast Asia came to North America. Along with them came an impressive number of teachers and gurus. Their work was a significant factor in the rapid spread of Eastern religions. It was in their favor that young Americans made their choices, seeking answers to the questions that plagued them.
Secular scholars have noted the connection between the spread of new religious movements and the processes taking place in the religious life of a state or region. According to some of them, much of the success of new religious movements is due to the alienation of groups, especially young people, from traditional churches, which are perceived as institutions with fixed doctrines and a predominance of external forms of religiosity. Some American youth are rebelling against the rigid rules of “institutional churches” and are seeking to move away from the religious traditions of their ancestors.
The rise of new religious movements has raised concerns in various sectors of American society. Population groups and influential institutions voiced their disapproval of the new religious associations. Their opposition to the invasion of cults varied in motivation and was carried out in a variety of religious ways. A very loud association emerged, which was called the “anti-cult movement” in the United States and Western European countries.
Active participants in the “anti-cult movement” were the organizations specifically created to counter the spread of new religious movements. One of the centers leading the fight against new religious movements was the “Cults Awareness Network” (CAN). It collected and publicized negative information, mainly about the activities of Scientologists and the Unification Church. The new religious movements were also attacked from the Internet. With the support of psychiatrists and the press, former members of the new religious movements disclosed confidential information about the inner workings of the organizations to which they belonged.
Protestant movements in the U.S. have been the most intransigent towards the new religious movements since the beginning. It was fundamentalist theologians in Protestantism who were the first authors of special publications that drew attention to the phenomena of new religious movements. They also coined terms such as “cults,” “destructive cults,” and later “totalitarian sects.
By classifying such new formations as “cults,” Protestant fundamentalists deny the religious nature of these new formations. Their doctrines of faith are seen as pseudo-religious constructs, artificially constructed and unshackled by deep traditions. They are dismissed as unreliable revelations received from above by the founders of the new religious movements and underlying the doctrines they have created[4].
4] Without altering the general hostility toward the new religious movements, some traditional religions have at the same time rejected their condemnation as malignant heresies resulting from the wiles of the devil, deception and blackmail. In 1986, the Vatican publishes a document entitled “The Phenomenon of Sects, or New Religious Movements, a Pastoral Challenge. For the first time it places part of the responsibility for the spread of hundreds of religious associations on the Catholic Church. The document lists serious flaws in various areas of Catholicism that allow missionaries of new religious movements to operate freely and effectively in countries that have traditionally been considered “Catholic.”
From the very beginning, relatives of followers of new religious movements joined the “anti-cult movement. Parents, mostly from the middle class, created local and national associations whose main task was to oppose “destructive cults”-primarily those in which thousands of young Americans found themselves under strict spiritual and organizational control. In 1971 the first mass action was held in Dallas, where participants accused cults of destroying families and forcing their followers to give up their studies and jobs. One of the immediate causes of this action was a couple’s conflict with the notorious “Children of God” religious group. The parents’ unsuccessful attempts to get their daughter out of the congregation forced them to seek support from the American public through the media. They were joined by citizens whose children were also involved in the Children of God association. After meetings and exchanges of experience, Children of God Freedom was established in 1972. But it soon became clear that dramatic problems awaited not only the relatives of the Children of God. And in 1974, the American Family Foundation was formed in Denver. It included parents who had experienced fear and anxiety for children who had become followers of one or another version of the new religious movements.
In 1975 the number of active participants in parent associations exceeded 1,500. During this period, their main efforts were directed against the “Unification Church,” whose founder, Sang Men Moon, had by this time settled in the United States. With the support of Senator R. Dole, congressional hearings were held, citing the negative effects of cults on people’s health, the destruction of families, and extortion. The tragic events in Guyana (November 1978), which led to the deaths of hundreds of followers of the “People’s Temple” movement, strengthened the position of the anti-cult movement. All this led to the emergence of several national and local anti-cult organizations. They were joined by some social psychologists and psychiatrists, including Harvard University professor D. R. Clark.
Parents, who were gravely concerned about their children leaving their families and abandoning their family faith, accused religious groups of using hypnosis and brainwashing to attract and isolate young people. All of these and other methods of attracting and controlling converts to groups were called “programming” – imposing a system (program) of views and behavior beneficial to the group. Some parents consider “deprogramming” to be the most effective means of liberation from the ideas and ideals of life formed by the “new teachers. Professional deprogrammers, mainly psychiatrists and psychologists, undertake to rid (often by harsh methods) the person of false beliefs and return to the true belief. The average deprogramming process lasts at least two weeks, but it can also take several months.