Suicide Cults

1
Suicide Cults

• A topic for 148.110
• Headlines in History

2
Strange Cults are always developing

• New cults include 2 French ones
• The Neo Phare group in Nantes expecting the end
  of the world on 24/10/02
• Compare the Order of the Solar Temple
• based in Switzerland French Canada
• Founded by Luc Jouret
• Suicides in 1994.

3
Heavens Gate

• For information look it up on google, especially
  http//www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol3/issue3/robinson.ht
  ml
• Led by Ti and Do (Marshall Applewhite)
• They expected to exit the earth on the Hale Bopp
  Comet in 1997.
• Mass suicide 26 March 1997

4
The Branch Davidians of Waco

• Founder was David Koresh
• Ex Seventh-dayAdventists
• Based in Waco, Texas
• Split from the Davidians
• Besieged by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol,
  Tobacco and Firearms and then the FBI on 28
  February 1993. Ended 19 April.
• 2 key books Armageddon in Waco ed. S A Wright
  Why Waco? By J D Tabor E V Gallagher

5
Jonestown

• Pentecostal Sect in Redwoods Valley founded in
  1968
• Pastor Jim Jones
• Agricultural Project in Guyana
• Massacre 18 November 1978, 914 died.
• Key book Salvation and Suicide by David Chidester

6
Asian Cults

• Falun Gong in China
• Tienamen Square Incident, 25 April 1999.
• Government repression.
• Cult responded with suicides.
• http//www.let.leidenuniv.nl/bth/falun.htm
• Aum Shinrikyo in Japan
• Tried to gas Tokyo underground on 5 May 1995.

7
The Ten Commandments Church

• A Ugandan cult
• Expected the end of the world on 31/12/1999.
• On 17 March 2000 mass murders and suicides took
  places in all their churches.

8
Some websites

• http//www.religioustolerance.org/
• http//www.cesnur.org/default.htm
• http//www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/rel/nanning
  a.htm a bibliography

9
The Cults and the Wold fear each other

• What does cult mean?
• Widespread fear of cults and ideas of abuse
• Is recruitment to cults brainwashing?
• Popular ideas govern responses
• Deprogramming
• Issues in Religious Freedom
• See Millennium, Messiahs and Mayhem ed. Thomas
  Robbins Susan J. Palmer.

10
Digging into Waco

• Victor Houteff (d 1955)
• David Koresh (aka Vernon Howell) joined 1981
• Adventist background (William Miller, Ellen
  White)
• The Fifth Seal , Messianic views
• Marc Breault and betrayal.
• http//www.shadeslanding.com/firearms/waco.massacr
  e.html
• http//www.public-action.com/SkyWriter/WacoMuseum/
  index.html

11
Death, Sex and Insanity

• Christianity disapproves of suicide - Buddhism
  does not.
• Death for a good cause is martyrdom
• Free love is often part of sects (sexual
  experimentation)
• Insanity is socially defined, and delusional
  religion is a classic form of it.
• See J M Phayer, Sexual Liberation and Religion
  Croom Helm, 1977).

12
Prophecy, Magic, Witchcraft

• A tradition of popular seers
• Nostradamus (1503-1566) is still popular
• Magic ideas incorporate pagan traditions
• They are thaumaturgical wanting to manipulate
  circumstances
• Gnostic ideas are prevalent.
• Rosecrucians and searchers for esoteric.
• See B Taithe T Thornton, Prophecy, (Sutton,
  1997) K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of
  Magic (Penguin, 1990)

13
Millennialism

• Apocalypticism, fear of imminent world crisis.
• Biblical apocalyptic language has affected
  western thinking
• The Millennium as the happy end to human time -
  but preceded by crisis.
• Post-millennial and Pre-millennial views.
• See W H Oliver, Prophets and Millennialists,
  (Oxford, 1978) S D OLeary, Arguing the
  Apocalypse, (Oxford, 1994).

14
Waiting for the End of the World

• Early Christianity
• The Year 1000 AD (Ralph Glaber)
• Joachim of Fiore and medieval fears
• Post-Reformation - Pope as AntiChrist. Munster,
  Fifth Monarchy Men, Muggleton.
• French Revolution and Richard Brothers, Joanna
  Southcott
• The Millerites in 1844.
• See J F C Harrison, The Second Coming
  (Routledge1979), E Weber Apocalypses, (Harvard
  1999)

15
Contemporary Sense of Crisis

• Nuclear arms and cold war in 1970s
• Global Islam and nuclear proliferation
• Doomsday theories of some Greenies
• Conspiracy theories from right wing
• Year 2000 excitement
• Movies reflect this.
• See Robert G Clouse, Hasack Pierard, The New
  Millennium Manual Baker, 1999)

16
Types of sects

• Sects that defy Christendom
• Conversionist sects
• Extreme rigorist cults (Tertullian, Old
  Believers)
• Restorationism (Mormons)
• Messianism
• See books by Brian Wilson The Sociology of
  Sectarianism (1972) etc.

17
Doomsday Cults

• The idea of a millennial sect
• Normon Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium
• Robbins Palmer, Millennium, Messiahs and Mayhem
  (Routledge, 1997)
• Adventist aspect of Waco.
• Right Wing Conspiracy groups
• Nazis, Ku Klux Klan
• See Paul Elliott, Brotherhoods of Fear (Blandford
  1998)

18
NRMs in Contemporary Society

• Pseudo and Popular Science - Spiritualism,
  Christian Science, TM, Anthroposophy, Steiner.
• New Age Cults - neo-pagan, ecological, Wimin.

19
Anti-Cult Traditions

• Strongest opposition from nearest neighbours
• Families and deprogramming
• State Opposition - the absolutist state.
• French Law
• Ex Members

20
Only in America

• The Pilgrim Father tradition
• Sense of manifest destiny and Gods blessing
• Liberal Post-Millennialism
• Popular democratic Protestantism and its
  apocalypticism
• Huge market for fears and drama
• See Nathan Hatch, The Democratisation of American
  Christianity (Yale, 1989)

21
More tentatively

• Possible explanations within Buddhism
• Possible reasons within China - Taiping Movement,
  Falun Gong.
• Possible reasons in the African context, with
  African Independent Churches.

22
Suicide cults in New Zealand?

• Many sects and cults in the 19th century from
  England and America
• Twentieth Century Groups - Camp David (God
  Squad), Neville Cooper (Rangiora).
• Maori Prophetic Movements
• Secular Groups Centrepoint, UFO believers.
• See Robert Ellwood, Islands of the Dawn.