Doomsday Cult - Etymology

Etymology

The term "doomsday cult" was first used in the title of a 1966 scholarly study of a group of Unification Church members by John Lofland, entitled: Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith. James Richardson writes in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Society that after the publication of Lofland's work, "The term doomsday cult has become a part of everyday parlance, used by the media to refer to apocalyptic religious groups."

While a student at the University of California, Berkeley Lofland lived with Unification Church missionary Young Oon Kim and a small group of American church members and studied their activities in trying to promote their beliefs and win new members for their church. Lofland noted that most of their efforts were ineffective and that most of the people who joined did so because of personal relationships with other members, often family relationships. Though Lofland had made his sociological interests clear to Kim from the outset, when she determined that he was not going to convert to their religion he was asked to move out of their residence.

Lofland published his findings in 1964 as a doctorial thesis entitled: "The World Savers: A Field Study of Cult Processes," and in 1966 in book form by Prentice-Hall. There have been several updated and expanded editions since. It is considered to be one of the most important and widely cited studies of the process of religious conversion, and one of the first modern sociological studies of a new religious movement.

Lofland laid out seven conditions for a doomsday cult, including: acutely felt tension, religious problem-solving perspective, religious seekership, experiencing a turning point, development of cult affective bonds, and neutralization of extracult attachments. He also suggests that individuals who join doomsday cults suffer from a form of deprivation.

In a later work by Lofland entitled Protest: Studies of Collective Behavior and Social Movements, he lists four main characteristics of a "Millenarian Movement," including: actively pursuing publicity and missionizing, a full-time corps of dedicated members constituting a majority of the group's adherents, investment of a significant amount of the group's resources in expanding the amount of new membership, and expending large sums of money to accomplish the first three goals and to maintain a continuous large amount of funds.