Crisis cult

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A crisis cult is a cult that arises in a crisis . Most of the time they are completely desperate and irrational acts. With crisis cults, the impossible should become a reality. Actions that are supposed to bring the dead back and with the dead also the way out of the crisis are typical.

Crisis cults bring hope in a time of hopelessness. The cults end with catastrophic consequences for those who have already suffered. The last spark of hope is shattered - the affected ethnic groups give up .

Concept history

The term was created by Weston La Barre , who defined it in 1971 as “ any group reaction to crisis, chronic or acute, that is cultic. ”(German:“ every reaction of a group to a crisis - chronic or acute - that is cultic. ”) While La Barre also used the term in general, he coined it especially for the emergence of new religious movements among the natives of North America , for example the ghost dance . A year after it was first published, he commented on the origin of the term:

"I have adopted the simple term 'Crisis Cult' both for its brevity and its indecisiveness, intending only to imply the insight of Malinovsky that there is no cult without a crisis. That is to say, there must be an unresolved problem or crisis, chronic or acute, and unresolved by ordinary secular means, before there is a cult response. "

“I coined the simple term ' crisis cult ' both because of its brevity and because of its indecision with the intention of simply conveying Malinowski's realization that there can be no cult without a crisis. That is, there has to be an unsolved problem or crisis - chronic or acute - that has not been resolved by ordinary secular means before a cult can arise. "

- Weston La Barre : 1972

As a matter of fact, reference can also be made to socio- and ethnological studies that dealt with relevant problems before the term “crisis cult” was coined.

literature

  • Matthias S. Laubscher: Crisis and Evolution. A cultural-scientific theory on the term “crisis cult”. In: Peter Eicher (ed.): Concept of God and social development. Kösel, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-466-25014-5 , p. 131ff. ( Forum Religious Studies 1).

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Weston La Barre: Materials for a History of Sketches of Crisis Cults: A Bibliographic Essay. In: Current Anthropology . Vol. 12 (February 1971), pp. 3-44.
  2. ^ Geoffrey K. Nelson: Cults, New Religions & Religious Creativity . Routledge, London 1987, pp. 203-205. ISBN 0-710-20855-3 .
  3. ↑ See e.g. B. Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann , Chiliasm and Nativism , 1961.