Introduction
There are two ways of explaining cult
- a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.
- a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.
If your group has some of these characteristics there's a chance it could be a cult
- The group is focused on living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment
- The group is preoccupied with making money
- Questioning, doubt and dissent are discouraged or even punished
- The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them
- The groups leader is not accountable to any authorities
- The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality,which causes conflict with the wider society
Task
MY task was to find a cult find two websites about it learn about it and answer a minimum of 12 questions about the cult
Process
- Who is the founder?
- When was it created?
- Where was it located?
- What were their beliefs?
- What were their rituals and festivals?
Real quick There were alot of leaders in this cult I'll name them from number one to the last
Victor Houteff was the founder of the group in 1942.
His wife Florence Houteff and Left the group in 1962.
Benjamin Roden took over afterwards and renamed the group General association of Davindian Seventh-Day Adventists. he proclaimed himself to be King Davids successor. HE died in 1978 were his wife Lois Roden took over She had been receiving visions that God is both male and female, that the third person of the trinity (the Holy Spirit) was female, and that Christ would take the form of a woman at his/her second coming! A power struggle developed between Lois and her son George.
Vernon Howell Joined the group as a handy man in 1981. In 1984, he married the daughter of a prominent member of the community, Rachel Jones, then aged 14. A series of power struggles resulted. George Roden had Howell thrown off the property. Roden later dug up a 25 year old corpse, placed it in the chapel and declared that the person who returned the corpse to life would be the next leader. Howell and followers sneaked into the compound to photograph the casket. They were detected and a gun battle between Vernon and George Roden resulted; George was wounded, and later imprisoned for violating a restraining order and for contempt of court. The latter charge was caused by a series of legal actions that he filed which were filled with profanity and threats against the judges. When Roden was imprisoned in 1987, Howell and his followers took over control. They found an illegal drug laboratory on the premises which made met amphetamine; they also found a large quantity of pornography. Both were removed. Howell was later tried for attempted murder, but the jury could not reach a verdict.
In 1989, Roden split his roommate's head open with an axe; he was found not-guilty of murder by reason of insanity. He lived in the Big Spring State Hospital in west Texas state mental facility. (On 1998-DEC-5, at the age of 60, he escaped and was found dead of a heart attack on the hospital grounds.)
A major international recruitment drive was established in 1985; it was aimed at SDA members (in particular those who had been disfellowshipped from the church due to their beliefs). This effort brought in members from Australia, Canada, Great Britain, etc. A number of businesses were created within the compound; guns were purchased wholesale and legally resold at gun shows. There were 130 members living at Waco in the Spring of 1993; they were a multi-racial, multi-ethnic group of whom 45 were black.
The group called themselves "Students of the Seven Seals" (meaning in reality: students of the scroll protected by the seven seals). The term "Branch Davidians" (BD) was derived from Roden's expression "Get off the dead [Shepherd's] Rod and move onto a living Branch". It was not generally used by the membership, but became the name most commonly used by the public and media. In 1990 Howell changed his name to David (after King David of the Israelites) Koresh (after the Babylonian King Cyrus). In 1992, Koresh renamed Mt. Carmel "Ranch Apocalypse", because of his belief that the final -encompassing battle of Armageddon mentioned in the Bible would start at the BD compound.
Evaluation
The Founder was Victor Houteff the found of Branch Davidian in 1929 Houteff and his followers (at the time) settled near Waco in 1935 and began to prepare for what they believed was the imminent return of Jesus, complaining that the Adventists had abandoned this task in favour of worldly pursuits.
Houteff died in 1955 and was succeeded by his wife, Florence. She not only continued his attempts to discern the signs of the "end time" but also set April 22, 1959, as the date of the dawn of the new messianic age. Beginning in March 1959, hundreds of believers gathered at the Texas centre.
Their basic beliefs follow those of the Seventh Day Adventist church, with its emphasis on the imminent arrival of Jesus Christ, dietary rules, the innerrancy of the Bible etc. They differ only slightly from many Evangelical churches. However, they have added a number of additional, novel concepts which were centered on themselves and their leader.
The BD's at Waco led a communal, Highly regulated and disciplined life: Raising early, eating together,growing their own food,committing long intervals of time to Bible study, ect. Some members had jobs outside community which contributed financially to the organization
They published a periodial "Skekineth Magizine",They held conversations which were synchronized with the Jewish feast days defined in Leviticus.
Following Koreshs "New light" doctrine, he began to persuade married woman within the group to join him as "spiritual wives". This involved sexual access. Couples were separated and their marriages dissolved. All but Koresh and his Spiritual wives were required to remain celibate.
Conclusion
The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members: Victor founded the Mt. Carmel Center near Waco TX with 11 followers in 1935. He called the group "The Shepherd's Rod" after his book title. They attempted to recruit membership from within the SDA church with only modest success. In 1942, he broke completely away from the SDA because the latter refused to grant conscientious objector status to its members during World War II. He selected the name Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists for his organization. After the war, he started to recruit members internationally
The leader dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think: Following Koreshs "New light" doctrine, he began to persuade married woman within the group to join him as "spiritual wives". This involved sexual access. Couples were separated and their marriages dissolved. All but Koresh and his Spiritual wives were required to remain celibate.(one of the moments)
The leader dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think,act,ect: The BD's at Waco led a communal, Highly regulated and disciplined life: Raising early, eating together,growing their own food,committing long intervals of time to Bible study, ect.
The group is preoccupied with making money:
Some members had jobs outside community which contributed financially to the organization
The group has polarized us-versus them mentally,which causes conflict with the wider society:
Because several of Koresh’s “spiritual” wives were teenagers, the community was accused of child abuse by a former member and an anticult activist. Those allegations were aired in a 1992 trial in which an ex-member sought custody of his daughter. Coupled with Koresh’s launching of a retail gun business, those child abuse charges began to attract the attention of legal authorities. Investigators, unsophisticated in the apocalyptic language of the Bible adopted by the group, also worried that the Branch Davidians might attack their neighbours or even Waco while fulfilling an imagined endtime scenario. Early in 1993 ATF agents in Texas requested a search warrant for Mount Carmel but decided to make a surprise forced entry rather than serve the warrant.
The groups leaders is not accountable to any authorities: Murder, Accused rape
The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, it's leader(s) (God,Messiah ect):
Howell moved quickly to assert his spiritual authority, and one of his first acts was the adoption of a new name, David Koresh. This name suggested that he was a spiritual heir of the biblical King David and that he, like Koresh (Hebrew for Cyrus, the ancient Persian king), was a messianic figure—though not the Messiah , Jesus. (Cyrus is the only non-Jew to whom the title messiah, or "anointed one," is given in Scripture.)
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