Cults, Authoritarian and New Religious Movements: Charisma and Domination

Catalog description

Why do people join cults? Why are authoritarian leaders so compelling to so many people? How do "charismatic" leaders and collectives convince members to give up control over their lives, including their finances and intimate relationships? This course explores popular, self-help, religious, and political movements through the lenses of sociological and psychological theories. Working from specific case studies, we examine research on cults and authoritarian movements, and develop theoretical frameworks that will help us to understand the personal, structural, and emotional factors that draw people to such movements. Case studies include the Church of Scientology, the People’s Temple, QAnon, and the Sullivanians, a psychoanalytic cult “hiding in plain sight” on Manhattan’s Upper West Side during the 1970s and 1980s.