Doomsday Cult - Nature of Doomsday Cults

Nature of Doomsday Cults

In Globalisation and the Future of Terrorism, Brynjar Lia notes that "Doomsday cults are nothing new," but also states that they are "relatively few." Lia cites the mass murder/suicide of members of Peoples Temple at Jonestown, Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, the use of salmonella as a poison by followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and actions of Aum Shinrikyo as examples, noting that: "...during the past decades one has witnessed a number of increasingly violent doomsday sects, inflicting mass violence on their members and, in rare cases, also on outsiders."

As for the prevalence of future events related to doomsday cults, Lia writes: "We will probably see new doomsday cults giving birth to mass-casualty attacks, although their violence will overwhelmingly be directed inwards and such incidents will remain relatively rare occurrences." James Boyett's Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse also described Jim Jones' Peoples Temple as a doomsday cult, noting that the group was "Invigorated by a combustible mix of paranoia and End-Times speculation (Jones expects a racial holocaust and nuclear Armageddon to destroy the U.S. any minute)..."

In his book Nuclear Terrorism, Graham T. Allison also cites Aum Shinrikyo and the Branch Davidians as examples of doomsday cults, but notes that "..only a handful can be considered dangerous." The 9/11 Commission Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States also referred to Aum Shinrikyo as a doomsday cult, as did an article published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Ashes of Faith, physician Robert Bwire describes the March 17, 2000 deaths involving the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God as the largest of its kind in recent human history.

In Mystics and Messiahs, Jenkins writes that as a result of events between 1993 and 1997 including the Waco Siege involving the Branch Davidians, violence involving the Order of the Solar Temple, Aum Shinrikyo's sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, and the Heaven's Gate incident, "Reporting on so-called doomsday cults became a mainstay of the media, just as satanic cults had been a decade before." However, Jenkins regards the Order of the Solar Temple as more of an example of organized crime than a doomsday cult, and believes that there is a certain polemic surrounding use of the term itself.

In Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld, the authors also make a comparison to organized crime, writing that Aum Shinrikyo "..often resembled a profit-hungry racketeering gang more than a fanatic doomsday cult." In James R. Lewis' The Order of the Solar Temple, he writes that the media made use of the term doomsday cult to characterize the movement, though former members and outsiders did not know what kind of event would occur.

In Kaplan's book Millennial Violence: Past, Present and Future, he regarded the media's use of the term to describe the Order of the Solar Temple as "on the mark." Thomas Robbins and Susan J. Palmer also write about the manner in which the news media can be captivated by the actions of these groups, noting: "The 'doomsday cult' led by an authoritarian charismatic leader has become ubiquitous in news reporting."

In his book Politeia: Visions of the Just Society, Eric Carlton debates whether or not the term is appropriate to describe these types of groups. Carlton writes that the event is only seen as a "doomsday" for the "wicked and unrepentant," whereas members of the group itself often regard it as a "day of deliverance," or a "renewal of the world." He regards these groups as "the ultimate in exclusivity," and while the future will be bleak for nonbelievers due to an unforeseen cataclysm, members of the group are promised existence in a new utopia.

This notion of utopian promises is reinforced through an example given by Dr. C. T. Benedict in his work One God in One Man. Benedict describes what he refers to as "doomsday, destructive apocalpytic religious cults," which he defines as: "very high intensity controlling groups, that have caused or are liable to cause destruction and loss of life."

After discussing examples including Aum Shinrikyo, Yahweh Ben Yahweh, and Charles Manson, Benedict describes the utopian paradise promised by Woo Jong-min, the leader of the Young sang Church in South Korea. On October 5, 1998, Woo Jong-min and six of his followers were found burnt to death in a mini-van. He had told his followers that they were embarking on an everlasting journey and would have a new and happy life after death.