Doomsday cult
Encyclopedia
Doomsday cult is an expression used to describe groups who believe in Apocalypticism
and Millenarianism
, and can refer both to groups that prophesy catastrophe
and destruction, and to those that attempt to bring it about. The term was popularized in sociologist John Lofland's
1966 study of Unification Church
members, Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith
. A classic study of a group with cataclysmic predictions had previously been performed by Leon Festinger and other researchers, and was published in his book When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World
. These two works were later drawn upon by sociologists and other academics in their explanations of doomsday cults. Some authors have used the term solely to characterize groups that have used acts of violence to harm their members and/or others, such as the salmonella
poisoning of salad bars by members of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh group, and the mass murder
/suicide
of members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
group. Others have used the term to refer to groups which have made and later revised apocalyptic prophesies or predictions, such as the Church Universal and Triumphant
led by Elizabeth Clare Prophet
, and the initial group studied by Festinger, et al. Still others have used the term to refer to groups that have prophesied impending doom and cataclysmic events, and also carried out violent acts, such as the Aum Shinrikyo
sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
and the mass murder/suicide of members of Jim Jones
' Peoples Temple
group after similar types of predictions.
Referring to his study, Festinger and later other researchers have attempted to explain the commitment of members to their associated doomsday cult, even after the prophesies of their leader have turned out to be false. Festinger explained this phenomenon as part of a coping mechanism called dissonance reduction, a form of rationalization. Members often dedicate themselves with renewed vigor to the group's cause after a failed prophesy, and rationalize with explanations such as a belief that their actions forestalled the disaster, or a belief in the leader when the date for disaster is postponed. Some researchers believe that the use of the term by the government and the news media can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy
, in which actions by authorities reinforces the apocalyptic beliefs of the group, which in turn can inspire further controversial actions. Group leaders have themselves objected to comparisons between one group and another, and parallels have been drawn between the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy and the theory of a deviancy amplification spiral
.
members by John Lofland
, entitled: Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith. James Richardson
writes in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Society that after the publication of Lofland's work, "The term doomsday cult has become a part of everyday parlance, used by the media to refer to apocalyptic religious groups." In Lofland's case study, he lays out seven conditions for a doomsday cult, including: acutely felt tension, religious problem-solving perspective, religious seekership, experiencing a turning point, development of cult affective bonds, and neutralization of extracult attachments. He also suggests that individuals who join doomsday cults suffer from a form of deprivation. In a later work by Lofland entitled Protest: Studies of Collective Behavior and Social Movements, he lists four main characteristics of a "Millenarian Movement," including: actively pursuing publicity and missionizing, a full-time corps of dedicated members constituting a majority of the group's adherents, investment of a significant amount of the group's resources in expanding the amount of new membership, and expending large sums of money to accomplish the first three goals and to maintain a continuous large amount of funds.
In Globalisation and the Future of Terrorism, Brynjar Lia notes that "Doomsday cults are nothing new," but also states that they are "relatively few." Lia cites the mass murder
/suicide
of members of Peoples Temple
at Jonestown
, Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
, the use of salmonella as a poison
by followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and actions of Aum Shinrikyo
as examples, noting that: "..during the past decades one has witnessed a number of increasingly violent doomsday sects, inflicting mass violence on their members and, in rare cases, also on outsiders." As for the prevalence of future events related to doomsday cults, Lia writes: "We will probably see new doomsday cults giving birth to mass-casualty attacks, although their violence will overwhelmingly be directed inwards and such incidents will remain relatively rare occurrences." James Boyett's Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse also described Jim Jones
' Peoples Temple as a doomsday cult, noting that the group was "Invigorated by a combustible mix of paranoia and End-Times speculation (Jones expects a racial holocaust and nuclear Armageddon to destroy the U.S. any minute).." In his book Nuclear Terrorism, Graham T. Allison also cites Aum Shinrikyo and the Branch Davidian
s as examples of doomsday cults, but notes that "..only a handful can be considered dangerous." The 9/11 Commission Report
of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
also referred to Aum Shinrikyo as a doomsday cult, as did an article published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
. In Ashes of Faith, physician
Robert Bwire describes the March 17, 2000 deaths involving the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
as the largest of its kind in recent human history.
In Mystics and Messiahs, Jenkins writes that as a result of events between 1993 and 1997 including the Waco Siege
involving the Branch Davidians, violence involving the Order of the Solar Temple
, Aum Shinrikyo's sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
, and the Heaven's Gate
incident, "Reporting on so-called doomsday cults became a mainstay of the media, just as satanic cults had been a decade before." However, Jenkins regards the Order of the Solar Temple as more of an example of organized crime
than a doomsday cult, and believes that there is a certain polemic
surrounding use of the term itself. In Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld, the authors also make a comparison to organized crime, writing that Aum Shinrikyo "..often resembled a profit-hungry racketeering gang more than a fanatic doomsday cult." In James R. Lewis' The Order of the Solar Temple, he writes that the media made use of the term doomsday cult to characterize the movement, though former members and outsiders did not know what kind of event would occur. In Kaplan's book Millennial Violence: Past, Present and Future, he regarded the media's use of the term to describe the Order of the Solar Temple as "on the mark." Thomas Robbins
and Susan J. Palmer
also write about the manner in which the news media can be captivated by the actions of these groups, noting: "The 'doomsday cult' led by an authoritarian charismatic leader has become ubiquitous in news reporting."
In his book Politeia: Visions of the Just Society, Eric Carlton debates whether or not the term is appropriate to describe these types of groups. Carlton writes that the event is only seen as a "doomsday" for the "wicked and unrepentant," whereas members of the group itself often regard it as a "day of deliverance," or a "renewal of the world." He regards these groups as "the ultimate in exclusivity," and while the future will be bleak for nonbelievers due to an unforeseen cataclysm
, members of the group are promised existence in a new utopia
. This notion of utopian promises is reinforced through an example given by Dr. C. T. Benedict in his work One God in One Man. Benedict describes what he refers to as "doomsday, destructive apocalpytic religious cults," which he defines as: "very high intensity controlling groups, that have caused or are liable to cause destruction and loss of life." After discussing examples including Aum Shinrikyo, Yahweh Ben Yahweh
, and Charles Manson
, Benedict describes the utopian paradise promised by Woo Jong-min, the leader of the Young sang Church in South Korea
. On October 5, 1998, Woo Jong-min and six of his followers were found burnt to death in a mini-van. He had told his followers that they were embarking on an everlasting journey and would have a new and happy life after death.
In Lofland's case study, he also noticed this exclusivity described by Carlton. Though he had made his sociological
interests clear to the religious leader from the outset, when the leader determined that Lofland was not going to convert to the religion he lost access to the group. A psychological
study by Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter found that individuals only turned to a cataclysmic world view
after they had repeatedly failed to find meaning in mainstream movements. Leon Festinger and his colleagues had observed members of the group for several months, and recorded their conversations both prior to and after a failed prophecy from their charismatic leader. The group had organized around a belief system which foretold that a majority of the Western Hemisphere
would be destroyed by a cataclysmic flood on December 21, 1955. Though they attempted to remain "a fly on the wall" during their study, it was difficult to maintain objectivity while immersed in the group. Their work was later published in the book When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World
.
carried out a mass murder
in Kanungu
, Uganda
, after the doomsday prophesies of its leaders failed to come true. Some groups draw their doomsday predictions and prophesies from the charismatic authority
figure of their group. The group The Summit Lighthouse
, a branch of Church Universal and Triumphant
led by Elizabeth Clare Prophet
, made predictions of an impending nuclear holocaust
that was forecast to occur on April 23, 1990. When these predictions failed to come true, Elizabeth Clare Prophet reiterated her statements of impending doom, stating to her congregation: "We need your sacrifice. The world is about to fail. I don't know where the bombs are coming from. But we must be ready." The group had stockpiled their shelter with military-grade weaponry, and members of the organization were later arrested on federal weapons charges. After Elizabeth Clare Prophet was diagnosed with epilepsy
and Alzheimer's disease
, the group's leadership has attempted to draw the focus of its work away from doomsday predictions.
Social scientists have found that while some group members will leave after the date for a doomsday prediction by the leader has passed uneventfully, others actually feel their belief and commitment to the group strengthened. Often when a group's doomsday prophesies or predictions fail to come true, the group leader will simply set a new date for impending doom, or predict a different type of catastrophe on a different date. Niederhoffer and Kenner attribute this motivation of the charismatic leader to maintain a consistent belief structure as due to a desire to save sunk cost
: "When you have gone far out on a limb and so many people have followed you, and there is much "sunk cost," as economists would say, it is difficult to admit you have been wrong." In Experiments With People: Revelations from Social Psychology, Abelson, Frey and Gregg explain this further: "..continuing to proselytize on behalf of a doomsday cult whose prophecies have been disconfirmed, although it makes little logical sense, makes plenty of psychological sense if people have already spent months proselytizing on the cult's behalf. Persevering allows them to avoid the embarrassment of how wrong they were in the first place." The common-held belief in a catastrophic event occurring on a future date can have the effect of ingraining followers with a sense of uniqueness and purpose. In addition, after a failed prophesy members may attempt to explain the outcome through rationalization and dissonance
reduction. Explanations may include stating that the group members had misinterpreted the leader's original plan, that the cataclysmic event itself had been postponed to a later date by the leader, or that the activities of the group itself had forestalled disaster. In the case of the Festinger study, when the prophecy of a cataclysmic flood was proved false, the members pronounced that their faith in God had prevented the event. They then proceeded to attempt to convert new members with renewed strength.
, where the characterization of being called a doomsday cult may actually affect the outcome of violent events related to the group. However, federal governments have made use of the term in reports on activities of these groups, such as Canada
's Canadian Security Intelligence Service Report on Doomsday Religious Cults. The report gives advice to members of the law enforcement community, noting: "authorities often fail to appreciate the leverage they have over doomsday movements, which depend upon them to fulfill their apocalyptic scenarios." In the conclusion of the Canadian Report, the potential effects of actions by authorities are described:
Eileen Barker
has compared these concepts to the notion of a deviancy amplification spiral
in the media and its effects on new religious movement
s, and James Richardson has also discussed this effect. In the case of the Concerned Christians
, use of the term "doomsday cult" as a characterization of the group served as a justification for deportation of its members by the Israel
i government.
In the book The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines, author Loren L. Coleman discusses the effect the media can have on the seemingly innocuous intentions of a French doomsday cult. On September 5, 2002, Arnaud Mussy told his followers based in Nantes, France to look forward to voyagers from Venus
who would collect them before the end of the world on October 24, 2002. Though Mussy denied any plans for a mass suicide
, both police and the media drew parallels to the Order of the Solar Temple. In Apocalpse Observed, authors Hall, Schuyler and Trinh discuss the effect the media had on the events surrounding the Order of the Solar Temple group. They note that news commentators "could not making a comparison to events in Waco, where the government siege of the Branch Davidians had just begun."
Apocalypticism
Apocalypticism is the religious belief that there will be an apocalypse, a term which originally referred to a revelation of God's will, but now usually refers to belief that the world will come to an end time very soon, even within one's own lifetime...
and Millenarianism
Millenarianism
Millenarianism is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society, after which all things will be changed, based on a one-thousand-year cycle. The term is more generically used to refer to any belief centered around 1000 year intervals...
, and can refer both to groups that prophesy catastrophe
Disaster
A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...
and destruction, and to those that attempt to bring it about. The term was popularized in sociologist John Lofland's
John Lofland (sociologist)
John Lofland is an American sociologist, professor, and author best known for his studies of the peace movement and for his first book, Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith which was based on field work among a group of Unification Church members in...
1966 study of Unification Church
Unification Church
The Unification Church is a new religious movement founded by Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon. In 1954, the Unification Church was formally and legally established in Seoul, South Korea, as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity . In 1994, Moon gave the church...
members, Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith
Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith
Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith is a sociological book based on field study of a group of Unification Church members in California and Oregon. It was first published in 1966 and written by sociologist John Lofland...
. A classic study of a group with cataclysmic predictions had previously been performed by Leon Festinger and other researchers, and was published in his book When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World
When Prophecy Fails
When Prophecy Fails is a 1956 classic book in social psychology by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter about a UFO religion that believes the end of the world is at hand.- Cognitive dissonance :...
. These two works were later drawn upon by sociologists and other academics in their explanations of doomsday cults. Some authors have used the term solely to characterize groups that have used acts of violence to harm their members and/or others, such as the salmonella
Salmonella
Salmonella is a genus of rod-shaped, Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, predominantly motile enterobacteria with diameters around 0.7 to 1.5 µm, lengths from 2 to 5 µm, and flagella which grade in all directions . They are chemoorganotrophs, obtaining their energy from oxidation and reduction...
poisoning of salad bars by members of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh group, and the mass murder
Mass murder
Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...
/suicide
Mass suicide
- Examples :Mass suicide sometimes occurs in religious or cultic settings. Defeated groups may resort to mass suicide rather than being captured. Suicide pacts are a form of mass suicide unconnected to cults or war that are sometimes planned or carried out by small groups of frustrated people...
of members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God was a breakaway religious movement from the Roman Catholic Church founded by Credonia Mwerinde, Joseph Kibweteere and Bee Tait in Uganda. It was formed in the late 1980s after Mwerinde, a brewer of banana beer, and Kibweteere, a...
group. Others have used the term to refer to groups which have made and later revised apocalyptic prophesies or predictions, such as the Church Universal and Triumphant
Church Universal and Triumphant
Church Universal and Triumphant is an international New Age religious organization founded in 1975 by Elizabeth Clare Prophet. It is an outgrowth of The Summit Lighthouse, founded in 1958 by Prophet's husband, Mark L. Prophet...
led by Elizabeth Clare Prophet
Elizabeth Clare Prophet
Elizabeth Clare Prophet was an American spiritual author and lecturer who was the leader of The Summit Lighthouse and Church Universal and Triumphant, a New Age religious movement which gained media attention in the late 1980s and early 1990s while preparing for potential nuclear disaster.During...
, and the initial group studied by Festinger, et al. Still others have used the term to refer to groups that have prophesied impending doom and cataclysmic events, and also carried out violent acts, such as the Aum Shinrikyo
Aum Shinrikyo
Aum Shinrikyo was a Japanese new religious movement. The group was founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984. The group gained international notoriety in 1995, when it carried out the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway....
sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
The Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, usually referred to in the Japanese media as the , was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of Aum Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995....
and the mass murder/suicide of members of Jim Jones
Jim Jones
James Warren "Jim" Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 mass suicide of 909 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the killings of five other people at a nearby airstrip.Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple in...
' Peoples Temple
Peoples Temple
Peoples Temple was a religious organization founded in 1955 by Jim Jones that, by the mid-1970s, included over a dozen locations in California including its headquarters in San Francisco...
group after similar types of predictions.
Referring to his study, Festinger and later other researchers have attempted to explain the commitment of members to their associated doomsday cult, even after the prophesies of their leader have turned out to be false. Festinger explained this phenomenon as part of a coping mechanism called dissonance reduction, a form of rationalization. Members often dedicate themselves with renewed vigor to the group's cause after a failed prophesy, and rationalize with explanations such as a belief that their actions forestalled the disaster, or a belief in the leader when the date for disaster is postponed. Some researchers believe that the use of the term by the government and the news media can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy
Self-fulfilling prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Although examples of such prophecies can be found in literature as far back as ancient Greece and...
, in which actions by authorities reinforces the apocalyptic beliefs of the group, which in turn can inspire further controversial actions. Group leaders have themselves objected to comparisons between one group and another, and parallels have been drawn between the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy and the theory of a deviancy amplification spiral
Deviancy amplification spiral
Deviancy amplification spiral is a media hype phenomenon defined by media critics as a cycle of increasing numbers of reports on a category of antisocial behavior or some other "undesirable" event, leading to a moral panic...
.
Usage of the term
The term "doomsday cult" was used in the title of a 1966 scholarly study of a group of Unification ChurchUnification Church
The Unification Church is a new religious movement founded by Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon. In 1954, the Unification Church was formally and legally established in Seoul, South Korea, as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity . In 1994, Moon gave the church...
members by John Lofland
John Lofland (sociologist)
John Lofland is an American sociologist, professor, and author best known for his studies of the peace movement and for his first book, Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith which was based on field work among a group of Unification Church members in...
, entitled: Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith. James Richardson
James Richardson (sociologist)
James T. Richardson is a Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies, and the Director of the Master of Judicial Studies Degree Program at the University of Nevada, Reno. Richardson specializes in social and behavioral science evidence, Sociology of Religions and New Religious Movements, Sociology...
writes in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Society that after the publication of Lofland's work, "The term doomsday cult has become a part of everyday parlance, used by the media to refer to apocalyptic religious groups." In Lofland's case study, he lays out seven conditions for a doomsday cult, including: acutely felt tension, religious problem-solving perspective, religious seekership, experiencing a turning point, development of cult affective bonds, and neutralization of extracult attachments. He also suggests that individuals who join doomsday cults suffer from a form of deprivation. In a later work by Lofland entitled Protest: Studies of Collective Behavior and Social Movements, he lists four main characteristics of a "Millenarian Movement," including: actively pursuing publicity and missionizing, a full-time corps of dedicated members constituting a majority of the group's adherents, investment of a significant amount of the group's resources in expanding the amount of new membership, and expending large sums of money to accomplish the first three goals and to maintain a continuous large amount of funds.
In Globalisation and the Future of Terrorism, Brynjar Lia notes that "Doomsday cults are nothing new," but also states that they are "relatively few." Lia cites the mass murder
Mass murder
Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...
/suicide
Mass suicide
- Examples :Mass suicide sometimes occurs in religious or cultic settings. Defeated groups may resort to mass suicide rather than being captured. Suicide pacts are a form of mass suicide unconnected to cults or war that are sometimes planned or carried out by small groups of frustrated people...
of members of Peoples Temple
Peoples Temple
Peoples Temple was a religious organization founded in 1955 by Jim Jones that, by the mid-1970s, included over a dozen locations in California including its headquarters in San Francisco...
at Jonestown
Jonestown
Jonestown was the informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, an intentional community in northwestern Guyana formed by the Peoples Temple led by Jim Jones. It became internationally notorious when, on November 18, 1978, 918 people died in the settlement as well as in a nearby...
, Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God was a breakaway religious movement from the Roman Catholic Church founded by Credonia Mwerinde, Joseph Kibweteere and Bee Tait in Uganda. It was formed in the late 1980s after Mwerinde, a brewer of banana beer, and Kibweteere, a...
, the use of salmonella as a poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
by followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and actions of Aum Shinrikyo
Aum Shinrikyo
Aum Shinrikyo was a Japanese new religious movement. The group was founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984. The group gained international notoriety in 1995, when it carried out the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway....
as examples, noting that: "..during the past decades one has witnessed a number of increasingly violent doomsday sects, inflicting mass violence on their members and, in rare cases, also on outsiders." As for the prevalence of future events related to doomsday cults, Lia writes: "We will probably see new doomsday cults giving birth to mass-casualty attacks, although their violence will overwhelmingly be directed inwards and such incidents will remain relatively rare occurrences." James Boyett's Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse also described Jim Jones
Jim Jones
James Warren "Jim" Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 mass suicide of 909 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the killings of five other people at a nearby airstrip.Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple in...
' Peoples Temple as a doomsday cult, noting that the group was "Invigorated by a combustible mix of paranoia and End-Times speculation (Jones expects a racial holocaust and nuclear Armageddon to destroy the U.S. any minute).." In his book Nuclear Terrorism, Graham T. Allison also cites Aum Shinrikyo and the Branch Davidian
Branch Davidian
The Branch Davidians are a Protestant sect that originated in 1955 from a schism in the Davidian Seventh Day Adventists , a reform movement that began within the Seventh-day Adventist Church around 1930...
s as examples of doomsday cults, but notes that "..only a handful can be considered dangerous." The 9/11 Commission Report
9/11 Commission Report
The 9/11 Commission Report, formally named Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, is the official report of the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks...
of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
9/11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to...
also referred to Aum Shinrikyo as a doomsday cult, as did an article published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services headquartered in Druid Hills, unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, in Greater Atlanta...
. In Ashes of Faith, physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
Robert Bwire describes the March 17, 2000 deaths involving the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God was a breakaway religious movement from the Roman Catholic Church founded by Credonia Mwerinde, Joseph Kibweteere and Bee Tait in Uganda. It was formed in the late 1980s after Mwerinde, a brewer of banana beer, and Kibweteere, a...
as the largest of its kind in recent human history.
In Mystics and Messiahs, Jenkins writes that as a result of events between 1993 and 1997 including the Waco Siege
Waco Siege
The Waco siege began on February 28, 1993, and ended violently 50 days later on April 19. The siege began when the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempted to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian ranch at Mount Carmel, a property located east-northeast of Waco,...
involving the Branch Davidians, violence involving the Order of the Solar Temple
Order of the Solar Temple
The Order of the Solar Temple also known as Ordre du Temple Solaire in French, and the International Chivalric Organization of the Solar Tradition or simply as The Solar Temple was a secret society based upon the modern myth of the continuing existence of the Knights Templar...
, Aum Shinrikyo's sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
The Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, usually referred to in the Japanese media as the , was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of Aum Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995....
, and the Heaven's Gate
Heaven's Gate (religious group)
Heaven's Gate was an American UFO religion based in San Diego, California, founded and led by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles...
incident, "Reporting on so-called doomsday cults became a mainstay of the media, just as satanic cults had been a decade before." However, Jenkins regards the Order of the Solar Temple as more of an example of organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
than a doomsday cult, and believes that there is a certain polemic
Polemic
A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...
surrounding use of the term itself. In Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld, the authors also make a comparison to organized crime, writing that Aum Shinrikyo "..often resembled a profit-hungry racketeering gang more than a fanatic doomsday cult." In James R. Lewis' The Order of the Solar Temple, he writes that the media made use of the term doomsday cult to characterize the movement, though former members and outsiders did not know what kind of event would occur. In Kaplan's book Millennial Violence: Past, Present and Future, he regarded the media's use of the term to describe the Order of the Solar Temple as "on the mark." Thomas Robbins
Thomas Robbins (sociologist)
-Life and work:Robbins obtained a B.A. in government from Harvard University in 1965, and a Ph.D. in Sociology, at the University of North Carolina in 1973. He subsequently held teaching or research positions at Queens College , the New School for Social Research, Yale University and the Graduate...
and Susan J. Palmer
Susan J. Palmer
Susan Jean Palmer is a Canadian sociologist and author with a primary research interest new religious movements. She is a professor of Religious Studies at Dawson College in Montreal, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at Concordia University, teaching sociology of religion courses.-Biography:Palmer...
also write about the manner in which the news media can be captivated by the actions of these groups, noting: "The 'doomsday cult' led by an authoritarian charismatic leader has become ubiquitous in news reporting."
In his book Politeia: Visions of the Just Society, Eric Carlton debates whether or not the term is appropriate to describe these types of groups. Carlton writes that the event is only seen as a "doomsday" for the "wicked and unrepentant," whereas members of the group itself often regard it as a "day of deliverance," or a "renewal of the world." He regards these groups as "the ultimate in exclusivity," and while the future will be bleak for nonbelievers due to an unforeseen cataclysm
Doomsday event
A doomsday event is a specific, plausibly verifiable or hypothetical occurrence which has an exceptionally destructive effect on the human race...
, members of the group are promised existence in a new utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
. This notion of utopian promises is reinforced through an example given by Dr. C. T. Benedict in his work One God in One Man. Benedict describes what he refers to as "doomsday, destructive apocalpytic religious cults," which he defines as: "very high intensity controlling groups, that have caused or are liable to cause destruction and loss of life." After discussing examples including Aum Shinrikyo, Yahweh Ben Yahweh
Yahweh ben Yahweh
Yahweh ben Yahweh was the adopted name of Hulon Mitchell, Jr. , founder and leader of the Nation of Yahweh, a black supremacist new religious movement founded in 1979....
, and Charles Manson
Charles Manson
Charles Milles Manson is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction...
, Benedict describes the utopian paradise promised by Woo Jong-min, the leader of the Young sang Church in South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
. On October 5, 1998, Woo Jong-min and six of his followers were found burnt to death in a mini-van. He had told his followers that they were embarking on an everlasting journey and would have a new and happy life after death.
In Lofland's case study, he also noticed this exclusivity described by Carlton. Though he had made his sociological
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
interests clear to the religious leader from the outset, when the leader determined that Lofland was not going to convert to the religion he lost access to the group. A psychological
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
study by Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter found that individuals only turned to a cataclysmic world view
World view
A comprehensive world view is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the entirety of the individual or society's knowledge and point-of-view, including natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and...
after they had repeatedly failed to find meaning in mainstream movements. Leon Festinger and his colleagues had observed members of the group for several months, and recorded their conversations both prior to and after a failed prophecy from their charismatic leader. The group had organized around a belief system which foretold that a majority of the Western Hemisphere
Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere or western hemisphere is mainly used as a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian and east of the Antimeridian , the other half being called the Eastern Hemisphere.In this sense, the western hemisphere consists of the western portions...
would be destroyed by a cataclysmic flood on December 21, 1955. Though they attempted to remain "a fly on the wall" during their study, it was difficult to maintain objectivity while immersed in the group. Their work was later published in the book When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World
When Prophecy Fails
When Prophecy Fails is a 1956 classic book in social psychology by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter about a UFO religion that believes the end of the world is at hand.- Cognitive dissonance :...
.
Prophecies and predictions
The philosophies and predictions of many doomsday cults involve the "threat of death to their members and others." The group Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of GodMovement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God was a breakaway religious movement from the Roman Catholic Church founded by Credonia Mwerinde, Joseph Kibweteere and Bee Tait in Uganda. It was formed in the late 1980s after Mwerinde, a brewer of banana beer, and Kibweteere, a...
carried out a mass murder
Mass murder
Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...
in Kanungu
Kanungu District
Kanungu District is a district in Western Uganda. Like most other Ugandan districts, it is named after its 'chief town', Kanungu, where the district headquarters are located.-Location:...
, Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
, after the doomsday prophesies of its leaders failed to come true. Some groups draw their doomsday predictions and prophesies from the charismatic authority
Charismatic authority
The sociologist Max Weber defined charismatic authority as "resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him." Charismatic authority is one of three forms of authority laid out...
figure of their group. The group The Summit Lighthouse
The Summit Lighthouse
The Summit Lighthouse is an international New Age spiritual organization founded in 1958 by Mark L. Prophet. Today it is the outreach arm of Church Universal and Triumphant, founded in 1975 by Prophet's wife, Elizabeth Clare Prophet...
, a branch of Church Universal and Triumphant
Church Universal and Triumphant
Church Universal and Triumphant is an international New Age religious organization founded in 1975 by Elizabeth Clare Prophet. It is an outgrowth of The Summit Lighthouse, founded in 1958 by Prophet's husband, Mark L. Prophet...
led by Elizabeth Clare Prophet
Elizabeth Clare Prophet
Elizabeth Clare Prophet was an American spiritual author and lecturer who was the leader of The Summit Lighthouse and Church Universal and Triumphant, a New Age religious movement which gained media attention in the late 1980s and early 1990s while preparing for potential nuclear disaster.During...
, made predictions of an impending nuclear holocaust
Nuclear holocaust
Nuclear holocaust refers to the possibility of the near complete annihilation of human civilization by nuclear warfare. Under such a scenario, all or most of the Earth is made uninhabitable by nuclear weapons in future world wars....
that was forecast to occur on April 23, 1990. When these predictions failed to come true, Elizabeth Clare Prophet reiterated her statements of impending doom, stating to her congregation: "We need your sacrifice. The world is about to fail. I don't know where the bombs are coming from. But we must be ready." The group had stockpiled their shelter with military-grade weaponry, and members of the organization were later arrested on federal weapons charges. After Elizabeth Clare Prophet was diagnosed with epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
and Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
, the group's leadership has attempted to draw the focus of its work away from doomsday predictions.
Social scientists have found that while some group members will leave after the date for a doomsday prediction by the leader has passed uneventfully, others actually feel their belief and commitment to the group strengthened. Often when a group's doomsday prophesies or predictions fail to come true, the group leader will simply set a new date for impending doom, or predict a different type of catastrophe on a different date. Niederhoffer and Kenner attribute this motivation of the charismatic leader to maintain a consistent belief structure as due to a desire to save sunk cost
Sunk cost
In economics and business decision-making, sunk costs are retrospective costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs are sometimes contrasted with prospective costs, which are future costs that may be incurred or changed if an action is taken...
: "When you have gone far out on a limb and so many people have followed you, and there is much "sunk cost," as economists would say, it is difficult to admit you have been wrong." In Experiments With People: Revelations from Social Psychology, Abelson, Frey and Gregg explain this further: "..continuing to proselytize on behalf of a doomsday cult whose prophecies have been disconfirmed, although it makes little logical sense, makes plenty of psychological sense if people have already spent months proselytizing on the cult's behalf. Persevering allows them to avoid the embarrassment of how wrong they were in the first place." The common-held belief in a catastrophic event occurring on a future date can have the effect of ingraining followers with a sense of uniqueness and purpose. In addition, after a failed prophesy members may attempt to explain the outcome through rationalization and dissonance
Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Dissonance is also reduced by justifying,...
reduction. Explanations may include stating that the group members had misinterpreted the leader's original plan, that the cataclysmic event itself had been postponed to a later date by the leader, or that the activities of the group itself had forestalled disaster. In the case of the Festinger study, when the prophecy of a cataclysmic flood was proved false, the members pronounced that their faith in God had prevented the event. They then proceeded to attempt to convert new members with renewed strength.
Effects of characterization
Some see the use of the term itself as a self-fulfilling prophecySelf-fulfilling prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Although examples of such prophecies can be found in literature as far back as ancient Greece and...
, where the characterization of being called a doomsday cult may actually affect the outcome of violent events related to the group. However, federal governments have made use of the term in reports on activities of these groups, such as Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
's Canadian Security Intelligence Service Report on Doomsday Religious Cults. The report gives advice to members of the law enforcement community, noting: "authorities often fail to appreciate the leverage they have over doomsday movements, which depend upon them to fulfill their apocalyptic scenarios." In the conclusion of the Canadian Report, the potential effects of actions by authorities are described:
Sanctions applied by authorities are often interpreted by a movement as hostile to its existence, which reinforces their apocalyptic beliefs and leads to further withdrawal, mobilization and deviant actions, and which in turn elicits heavier sanctions by authorities. This unleashes a spiral of amplification, as each action amplifies each action, and the use of violence is facilitated as the group believes this will ultimately actualize its doomsday scenario."
Eileen Barker
Eileen Barker
Eileen Vartan Barker OBE, born in Edinburgh, UK, is a professor in sociology, an emeritus member of the London School of Economics , and a consultant to that institution's Centre for the Study of Human Rights...
has compared these concepts to the notion of a deviancy amplification spiral
Deviancy amplification spiral
Deviancy amplification spiral is a media hype phenomenon defined by media critics as a cycle of increasing numbers of reports on a category of antisocial behavior or some other "undesirable" event, leading to a moral panic...
in the media and its effects on new religious movement
New religious movement
A new religious movement is a religious community or ethical, spiritual, or philosophical group of modern origin, which has a peripheral place within the dominant religious culture. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may be part of a wider religion, such as Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism, in...
s, and James Richardson has also discussed this effect. In the case of the Concerned Christians
Concerned Christians
Monte Kim Miller formed a group known as the Concerned Christians in Colorado, during the 1980s. Created as an element of the Christian countercult movement to combat New Age religious movements and anti-Christian sentiment, it has shifted to more of a apocalyptic Christian movement as the group...
, use of the term "doomsday cult" as a characterization of the group served as a justification for deportation of its members by the Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i government.
In the book The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines, author Loren L. Coleman discusses the effect the media can have on the seemingly innocuous intentions of a French doomsday cult. On September 5, 2002, Arnaud Mussy told his followers based in Nantes, France to look forward to voyagers from Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...
who would collect them before the end of the world on October 24, 2002. Though Mussy denied any plans for a mass suicide
Mass suicide
- Examples :Mass suicide sometimes occurs in religious or cultic settings. Defeated groups may resort to mass suicide rather than being captured. Suicide pacts are a form of mass suicide unconnected to cults or war that are sometimes planned or carried out by small groups of frustrated people...
, both police and the media drew parallels to the Order of the Solar Temple. In Apocalpse Observed, authors Hall, Schuyler and Trinh discuss the effect the media had on the events surrounding the Order of the Solar Temple group. They note that news commentators "could not making a comparison to events in Waco, where the government siege of the Branch Davidians had just begun."
See also
- Cognitive dissonanceCognitive dissonanceCognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Dissonance is also reduced by justifying,...
- Cult suicideCult suicideA cult suicide is a term used to describe the mass suicide by the members of groups that have been considered cults. In some cases, all or nearly all members have committed suicide at the same time and place. Groups that have committed such mass suicides and that have been called cults include...
- Destructive cultDestructive cultA destructive cult is a religion or other group which has caused or has a high probability of causing harm to its own members or to others. Some researchers define "harm" in this case with a narrow focus, specifically groups which have deliberately physically injured or killed other individuals,...
- Disconfirmed expectancyDisconfirmed expectancyDisconfirmed expectancy is a psychological term for what is commonly known as a failed prophecy. It leads to a form of cognitive dissonance.Disconfirmed expectancy was illustrated by Leon Festinger in the 1956 book When Prophecy Fails...
- DoomsdayDoomsdayDoomsday may refer to:* End times, a prophesied time of tribulation that would precede the Second Coming of the Messiah in Abrahamic religions-Fiction:* Doomsday , a 1927 novel by Warwick Deeping* Doomsday , a DC comic book character...
- Project MegiddoProject MegiddoProject Megiddo was a report researched and written by the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation under Director Louis Freeh. Released on October 20, 1999, the report named followers of white supremacy, Christian Identity, the militia movement, Black Hebrew Israelites, and apocalyptic cults...
- Helter Skelter (Manson scenario)Helter Skelter (Manson scenario)The murders perpetrated by members of Charles Manson's "Family" were inspired in part by Manson's prediction of Helter Skelter, an apocalyptic war he believed would arise from tension over racial relations between blacks and whites...
External links
- When Prophecy Fails, Key points from the Leon Festinger text