Four issues of concern exist in the contemporary American dilemma of cult activity. These issues follow as recruiting techniques, unorthodox practices, and the causes for joining.

The techniques used by cult leaders in order to recruit new members can be both manipulative and destructive. Margret Thaler Singer Ph.D. reported in the January 1997 Transactional Analysis Journal article "Therapy, Thought Reform, and Cults" , that "thought reform", which is a "process of planned and systematic psychosocial manipulations"(16), is used in order to gain control over cult followers(15). By using psychological methods as a means of luring in and manipulating followers to conform to the group, cult leaders are given a forum for preaching their specific ideologies. Singer states in the previously cited article that "manipulation of the person's total social environment" is a means in which cult leaders "stabilize and reinforce the modified behavior"(16). John Kifner's November 13 1996 New York Times article describes a police arrest of thirty-five members of a leftist cult for possession of illegal weapons. The original leader of this

e "conversion techniques" used by cults are no more manipulative or harmful than those used by "conventional religious circles"(6). Sociologists tend to question the idea of manipulation of followers by cult leaders. Chris Bader and Alfred Demris state in their 1996 article "A Test of the Stark-Bainbridge Theory of Affiliation with Religious Cults and Sects" that was published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion , that "sociological studies have rejected the brainwashing model, focusing instead on the interactions between potential and established cult members"(285). Whether looking from a sociological or psychological standpoint, the relationship between the leader and the cult members is one that must be closely scrutinized when trying to understand the ability of cults to recruit and retain membership.

cribes all the members of the psychotherapy cult as having been "graduate psychology students"(19). Also, in the March 27 1997 Los Angeles Times article on the Heaven's gate cult, members are describes as having been talented computer programmers(A31). There are many other suggestions as to what makes an individual join a cult, yet most have never been formally studied. The lack of research, and the problems in the testability of theories, leaves the topic of who becomes a member and why, as a very controversial and highly debated topic. With more understanding of this topic, the harm that cult's present may be hopefully weakened.

ques such as "isolation and exhaustion to indoctrinate his followers"(A1). On March 27 1997, The Los Angeles Times, staff writers told of the astounding suicide of thirty-nine members of the Heaven's Gate cult which occurred in a Rancho Santa Fe Mansion in San Diego, California(A1). When describing the cult members, they were repor

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Approximate Word count = 1208
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)