Cults; Faith, Healing, and Coercion / Edition 2

by Marc Galanter

Overview

From the mass weddings of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church to the ritual suicides at Heaven's Gate, charismatic cults and their devotees have become facts of American life. Using material gleaned from twenty-five years of direct encounters with cults and their detractors, as well as extensive research, Marc Galanter offers the most extensive psychological analysis of these organizations available. Cults explores not only how members feel and think at all stages of their involvement, but also how larger social and psychological forces reinforce individual commitment within the cults.

For this revised and newly-illustrated second edition, Galanter has added three new chapters on cult development in the 1990s, spiritual recovery movements, and alternative medicine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195123692
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	01/28/1999
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)
Lexile:	1410L (what's this?)

Table of Contents

Preface to the Second Edition		ix	(2)
Acknowledgments to the First Edition		xi
1. The Charismatic Group		1	(12)
What Is a Charismatic Group?		4	(3)
A Research Perspective		7	(6)
I FORCES IN THE CHARISMATIC GROUP		13	(64)
2. Group Cohesiveness		15	(19)
A Clinical Model		15	(4)
A Charismatic Religious Sect: The Divine Light Mission		19	(15)
3. Shared Beliefs		34	(26)
Communities of Shared Belief		35	(10)
Shared Beliefs in the Unification Church		45	(15)
4. Altered Consciousness		60	(17)
Meditation		63	(3)
Drug-Induced Altered Consciousness		66	(2)
Social Induction		68	(9)
II A MODEL OF THE CHARISMATIC GROUP		77	(34)
5. Biology and Behavior		79	(13)
The Relief Effect		81	(2)
Evidence in Contemporary Sects		83	(5)
Ethologic Observations		88	(4)
6. The Cult as a Social System		92	(19)
Transformation		92	(4)
Monitoring		96	(7)
Feedback		103	(2)
Boundary Control		105	(6)
III CASE HISTORIES OF CHARISMATIC GROUPS		111	(74)
7. Trouble at the System's Boundary		113	(9)
Jonestown		113	(5)
MOVE		118	(4)
8. A Religious Sect: The Unification Church		122	(45)
A History of the Sect		122	(4)
Induction		126	(10)
Family and Marital Structure		136	(16)
Leaving the Sect		152	(15)
9. The Millenium Approaches		167	(18)
Waco and Antigovernmental Paranoia		167	(5)
Aum Shinrikyo		172	(4)
Heaven's Gate		176	(3)
Suicide, Murder, and Immolation		179	(6)
IV SPIRITUAL RECOVERY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE		185	(42)
10. The Nature of Healing Movements		187	(14)
Finding a Perspective		187	(9)
The Psychology of Membership		196	(5)
11. Alternative Healing in the Medical Mainstream		201	(10)
The Christian Medical and Dental Society		201	(4)
The Self-Help Clinic: Impact on Institutional Care		205	(6)
12. The AA Example		211	(16)
The Charismatic Gift of Alcoholics Anonymous		212	(6)
The Fully Evolved Healing Group		218	(9)
APPENDIX A: The Charismatic Group: A Summary		227	(3)
APPENDIX B: The Charismatic Group: Examples		230	(2)
APPENDIX C: Chronology of the Studies		232	(3)
Notes		235	(14)
Bibliography		249	(16)
Index		265

Editorial Reviews

Praise for the first edition:

"Anyone wishing to understand the psychodynamics of [charismatic groups] should pick up Cults....[Galanter] has been a student of cult-like activity for the better part of two decades; this book represents a thoughtful and provocative summation of what he has learned."—Mark Silk, The New York Times Book Review.

"[Galanter] encourages us to think carefully about the extent to which our society can tolerate pluralism, innovation, and 'deviance.'...Galanter's approach gives us an urgently needed framework that can improve the quality of discussions about cults."—The Christian Century

From the Publisher