My 1970s California childhood was filled with violent faiths and death cults in a decade feeling the hangover of the Summer of Love and suffering the fallout of the nuclear family. I was five when Charles Manson was sentenced to life for the murders committed by his Family of former hippies, pretty girls whose minds had been opened and broken. I was in Junior High when the bodies were discovered in Jonestown, the jungle commune in Guyana where Reverend Jim Jones had hoped to build a new Eden. I will never forget the shape of them, lying flat and embracing, all having drunk poison punch at his command. I wondered how it was possible to have such faith, such all-consuming, passionate awful faith that you would follow such a leader, however charismatic he was.
The history of American faith is filled with charismatic leaders, eager to change the world and to destroy it. In a nation founded by religious radicals in search of freedom, we are raised to believe and raised to protect the right to believe at all costs. The faithful pushed their wagons into the empty west, missionaries and prophets spreading the word, building utopian societies with a violent certainty. The Mormon pioneers irrigated and settled an uninhabitable land of salt lakes. Their communal, utopian church would split over the practice of polygamy, which stood in opposition to the government and statehood. The recent raids on the fundamentalist Mormon Yearning for Zion Ranch of Warren Jeffs in Texas reminds us of the history of secret societies, with young women in pioneer dresses, trapped in cycles generations old, of men who must have multiple wives to attain the highest levels of heaven, a tenet of faith revealed by the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Joseph Smith.
In a post-war world, our faiths have turned darker and deadlier. We have grabbed hold of our freedom with both hands. Urbanization has led to isolation, to a rootless people in search of connection, estranged from the families that might have cautioned them or saved them. New cults formed in cities with followers drawn to a range of new gurus, Sun Myung Moon, Mahareshi Mahesh Yogi, “Fathers” Yod and David “Moses” Berg, Werner Erhard and his Est. All have been accused of a range of abuses, sexual, physical, mental, financial. Groups were made through abduction and maintained through brainwashing. New Age communes developed on the fringes, where charismatic men gathered harems and drugs provided the only escape.
Beautiful to look at, strangely hypnotic and utterly original, The Master examines cult dynamics through the ’50s-era misadventures of a violent ex-sailor with horrible posture and zero impulse control.
Filmmaking artistry aside, writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson‘s picture hits home as a period-perfect examination of a perpetually recurring truth: When people hanker for a know-it-all authority figure who will tell them what to think, self-appointed “masters” will be more than happy to oblige.
Anderson brings cult behavior into fascinating focus by examining the bond between two characters portrayed by extraordinary actors: the accidental, alcoholic seeker Freddie Quill, played by Joaquin Phoenix, and the suave, all-American swami Lancaster Dodd, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
The Master casts its own weird, R-rated spell not because it yields shocking revelations or clever plot twists…
Instead, The Master resonates because its peculiar particulars illustrate why people like Dodd continue to proliferate with near-tragic frequency. Consider such characters as the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who picked spouses for his followers; California Coptic priest Zakaria Botros Henein, whose devotees made the Innocence of Muslims video; and positive-thinking guru James Arthur Ray, whose eager-to-please acolytes sat in a sweat lodge until they died.
Factor in Vanity Fair magazine’s recent report about Church of Scientology matchmaking practices for Tom Cruise (denied by the organization), and it seems clear that the top-down command structure depicted in The Master remains in full force six decades on.
Anderson, who’s earned five Oscar nominations for previous obsession-themed films including There Will Be Blood, Boogie Nights and Magnolia, situates The Master at a comfortable remove from contemporary cult dysfunction,…
For all its genteel period touches, The Master strikes a chord with contemporary audiences by probing the feral impulses that fuel groupthink then and now. Anderson strips the cult dynamic down to its rude essence,...The men turn on each other.
“Nobody likes you Freddie,” Dodd says calmly. “I’m the only one who likes you.”
Freddie, who’s just finished pounding his head against a bunkbed in a fit of inarticulate rage, finally screams the forbidden notion that everyone in the audience has surely already considered: “You’re making this shit up!”
In The Master’s portrait of cult dysfunction, the misfit and the mumbo-jumbo man share a toxic alchemy more dangerous than any mad cocktail that Freddie could dream up.
The Wall Street Journal is asking "When Does a Religion Become a Cult?" and states the obvious:America has probably supplied the world with more new religions than any other nation. Since the first half of the 19th century, the country's atmosphere of religious experimentation has produced dozens of movements, from Mormonism to a wide range of nature-based practices grouped under the name Wicca.
By 1970 the religious scholar Jacob Needleman popularized the term "New Religious Movements" (NRM) to classify the new faiths, or variants of old ones, that were being embraced by the Woodstock generation. But how do we tell when a religious movement ceases to be novel or unusual and becomes a cult?
It's a question with a long history in this country. The controversy involving Hollywood writer-director Paul Haggis is only its most recent occurrence. Mr. Haggis left the Church of Scientology and has accused it of abusive practices, including demands that members disconnect from their families, which the church vigorously denies.
Now's where they go for the argument we hear all too often:To use the term cult too casually risks tarring the merely unconventional, for which America has long been a safe harbor. In the early 19th century, the "Burned-over District" of central New York state—so named for the religious passions of those who settled there following the Revolutionary War—gave rise to a wave of new movements, including Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventism and Spiritualism (or talking to the dead). It was an era, as historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom wrote, when "Farmers became theologians, offbeat village youths became bishops, odd girls became prophets."
When the California Gold Rush of 1849 enticed settlers westward, the nation's passion for religious novelty moved with them. By the early 20th century, sunny California had replaced New York as America's laboratory for avant-garde spirituality. Without the weight of tradition and the ecclesiastical structures that bring some predictability to congregational life, some movements were characterized by a make-it-up-as-you-go approach that ultimately came to redefine people, money and propriety as movable parts intended to benefit the organization.
Many academics and observers of cult phenomena, such as psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo of Stanford, agree on four criteria to define a cult. The first is behavior control, i.e., monitoring of where you go and what you do. The second is information control, such as discouraging members from reading criticism of the group. The third is thought control, placing sharp limits on doctrinal questioning. The fourth is emotional control—using humiliation or guilt. Yet at times these traits can also be detected within mainstream faiths.
The writer, Mitch Horowitz, then goes on to add two more categories:Financial control and extreme leadership.
Financial control translates into levying ruinous dues or fees, or effectively hiring members and placing them on stipends or sales quotas. Consider the once-familiar image of Hare Krishna devotees selling books in airports. Or a friend of mine—today a respected officer with a nonprofit organization—who recalls how his departure from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church was complicated by the problem of a massive hole in his résumé, reflecting the years he had financially committed himself to the church.
Problems with extremist leadership can be more difficult to spot. The most tragic cult of the last century was the Rev. Jim Jones's Peoples Temple, which ended with mass murder and suicide in the jungles of Guyana in 1978. Only a few early observers understood Jones as dangerously erratic. Known for his racially diverse San Francisco congregation, Jones was widely feted on the local political scene in the 1970s. He was not some West Coast New Ager gone bad. He emerged instead from the mainstream Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) pulpit, which sometimes lent a reassuringly Middle-American tone to his sermons.
We say Mr. Horowitz is wrong about all of this, of course, because cults have expanded their reach so far into the mainstream over the last few decades, it's almost impossible for his old school definitions to apply. For instance, homeopathy doesn't fit within his definition, but it's most definitely a cult - a cult that's gone mainstream. 
As "Wendy" said on the Quackometer blog:Homeopaths live in the same space as you but are in a different world, and they ‘know’. To come out of that world is a complete revision of assumptions, thought systems and thinking style. It is very hard to do. I think I’ve been trying to say that for a long time. The larger the numbers have grown the easier it is for people to live in that world with others like them.
In other words, the Homeopathy cult's reach is such that there's no need for control over the follower's movements. And why should there be? It's online, it's on Oprah, it's in Whole Foods - Hell, even conservative Michael Savage is a Homeopath, and Rush Limbaugh is a fan!
Our point is, there's no escaping the Homeopathy cult's influence once you're under it, so there's no need for it to engage in behavior control, information control, thought control, emotional control, financial control or extreme leadership. 
We ask you, when was the last time we heard of a Homeopath being convicted for murder or manslaughter? We hear of them killing people, certainly, but so few outsiders understand cultism the Homeopaths almost always walk free because the mental trap cults have weaved around society is unknown to those charged with getting at the truth. Most people think Homeopathy is Herbal Medicine and there is almost no effort to explain the difference, anywhere. 
Anyway, we're happy to see anything that mentions cults, cultish thinking, or cultism in America, but unfortunately, under the circumstances, this particular piece is about as worthless as they come.
We're relieved to finally know, out of all the Hollywood Democrats out there, at least Tom Hanks ain't crazy:After I left Capitol Hill, I had the great fortune of working as an arts-and-entertainment writer at the Washington Times. The gig included the unfairly fun duty of writing weekly movie reviews and, occasionally, interviewing the “talent,” as directors, actors, and writers are referred to in Hollywood-publicist lingo.We always liked Hanks. Good to know he's aware of what's up. We'd like to watch his films in peace, without the annoying subtext we have with other actors. “We’re here to de-program you”?
No doubt a highlight of those six years was the 45 minutes I got to spend in the company of Tom Hanks and the writer-director brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, who were in Washington, D.C., to promote The Ladykillers, a not-terrible, but uncharacteristically flat remake of the 1955 Ealing Studios classic. (It paled in comparison to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Coens’ audacious reinvention of The Odyssey.)
Hanks’ pious center-left politics are well-known, and he promptly ribbed me mercilessly about the Times’ connection to the cult led by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. “Have you seen the reverend?” Hanks joshed. “Does he levitate in the lobby?” Hanks recalled the time he saw an ad for the Unification Church on the side of a bus in his hometown of Oakland, Calif. “If you’re really the new incarnation of Christ, would you need to take out advertisements?!”
After informing me that I would not be leaving the hotel suite--“We’re here to de-program you”--Hanks finally let up. The Coens laughed uproariously throughout (as, truthfully, did I).
"At my local bookstore on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, 1960s nostalgia is in high gear. A display table is stacked high with pricey coffee table books, each with its own variation on psychedelic rainbow lettering, each claiming to reveal the untold story of the 'peace and music' festival. I understand the lucrative business of selling those hazy memories — the Woodstock museum, Cherry Garcia ice cream, even the new movie 'Taking Woodstock.' I just can't buy into it.-- Jayanti Tamm, author of "Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult", saying what the rest of you can't admit - you are the indoctrinated children of cultish madmen - as part of her Daily Tidings.It's not because, as a Gen-Xer, I feel slighted that I missed out on all the fun. It's because for me and many other children of the flower children, our rose-colored glasses are not just slightly tinted, but darkly tainted.
Along with the iconic music and fashion came myriad new religions and a foolish rush to embrace peddlers of spiritual snake oil. A flood of swamis, yogis and self-proclaimed enlightened beings preyed on hippies who were disillusioned by mainstream religion and in search of an alternative path.
By the time the mud had dried at Woodstock, Swami Prabhupada had created the Hare Krishnas and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon had founded the Unification Church — the Moonies. Communes and ashrams sprouted across America. In the 1960s, the decade now mythic for its anti-conformity, flocks of people conformed to the dictates of self-proclaimed prophets.
In 1968, the Beatles sat at the feet of the Maharishi. Consciousness-raising went mainstream. Reciting Sanskrit chants, wearing japa beads and finding a guru became chic. Everyone who was anyone read 'I Am That' and 'Autobiography of a Yogi.' Many free spirits obediently changed their names, dropped out of college and abandoned their families. Ironically, their wild-child rebellion landed them in rigidly structured cults that controlled their lives — and those of their children."
This is the image most people have when they hear the words "cult" or "cultists" - but we know most cultists aren't that obvious - so what's the indicator a person is a cultist?
David Koresh
Oprah Winfrey
Marshall Applewhite
Charlie Manson
Jim Jones
J.Z. Knight
Shirley MacLaine
Rev. Sun Myung Moon (and wife)
The ideas they claim to believe.
