Why are cults as American as apple pie

“We all have an idea of ​​what a cult is,” the author writes Jane in “Cults Like us – why Doomsday’s opinion runs America” ​​(a publishing signal). “The word Cult Concenes a mental appearance: a group of beautiful young people dance in the sun, perhaps aspiring actors in Los Angeles who took a wrong turn on the beach and landed in an orgy. “

But this image could not have been further away from the truth and in Borden’s tables “Cults like JSC” not only the dark history of cult ideologies in America, but how the country remains an educated land to think as a cult.

“Its information of our assumptions about American identity and our understanding of ourselves unchanging,” she writes. “He is subject to any voting, buying, prejudice and posting social media. Like fish who do not know water, we swim through it without recognition.”

Since pilgrims’ fathers reached Mayflower in 1620 with almost cultivated Puritanic beliefs, the nation has been sensitive to cult ideologies. “But their day -to -day Puritan beliefs did not leave; they became American culture,” she says.

And, as Barden explains, the meaning of the ‘cult’ has been moved from the original Latin, Cult (means a religion or religious practice), for something more humiliating, taking fanatics, enthusiasts and impoders. “Today,” adds Barden, “Cult It carries strong valence of fraud, abuse and charlatanism. “

But because of the first change and, argues Borden, a nation to repeat for indoctrination, non-transitional groups once treated with suspicion, such as Christian scientists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, have now been established and institutionalized religions.

And with that recognition comes many benefits. “If they can provide church status, we don’t even ask for taxes,” she adds.

We all know the infamous cults of our time, such as the Manson family and David Davidians of David Koresh, but today the number of groups cultivated in the United States is increasing exponentially and Barden estimates that there are now about 10,000 such organizations nationwide.

Indeed, they can now be seen as an integral part of our national psyche than just avoiding. “Destructive cults and extreme faith systems are not unique to America, of course,” Barden adds. “But Americans certainly tolerate them more.”

Whatever the group, cults share similar features; A demagogue at the top, notions of exceptional, and, uninterruptedly, an end to ‘Doomsday’ end.

They also try to dig members against an alleged opponent, despite any threat presented. “When cult leaders, artists, grifts, demagogues, dictators, internal abusers or other selfish dillweeds want to manipulate or exploit others, all they have to do is raise the spectrum of an external enemy,” Barden writes.

“Anydo will do. It doesn’t matter which one.”

Some of the case studies that Barden examines on the eve of ‘cults like us’ in funny.

Take Arthur Bell, the leader of the United California California Cult in the 1930s who persuades 14,000 members to split with their money so that he could get the conspiratorial line of ‘hidden rulers’ who, he claimed, were responsible for the whole world of depression.

Like most cults, Bell’s sales pitch was based on a conspiracy theory where the enemy is “unjust powerful” and that only it, with the support of its members, could do nothing about it.

As Barden explains, it is a common topic. “Conspiracy theories and theories are kissing cousins: they share DNA, often look alike, and sometimes get married,” she says.

But it is this call to rebel against the elites aimed at the daily people who have been the attractive cries of demagogues since the dawn of the nation – and will continue to be, say Barden. “Because these faars are deeply rooted in us, they are often employed to manipulate us,” she writes.

For cult leaders, it is the personal benefit that runs recruitment campaigns. “Voters’ feelings are all that matters to a demagogue, which pushes the faars, bends the truth or direct lies and builds down the platforms,” ​​Barden adds.

The problem is widespread and uncontrolled fraud involved.

“Issuance is the deception of the cards, not the ideologies itself,” Barden concludes.

“All right, sometimes ideologies are problematic.”