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There are, according to some estimates, several million Americans in several thousand recently formed or newly revived religious groups. These groups present themselves as vehicles for finding God or the meaning of life, for achieving higher consciousness or enlightenment, or for serving the universal purpose. Some are nominally Christian or Jewish, others Eastern. Some are syncretistic, combining, for example, Buddist meditation techniques with psychotherapy or Christian with Taoist symbols. Others are highly idiosyncratic constructions born of one person's private visions and shaped by his or her personality.
Some new religious groups proselytize potential converts aggressively and indoctrinate relentlessly. Many, like religious orders throughout history, use techniques designed to purify, pacify, or annihilate “rational” thought. Their practices induce trance-like states which may make potential converts more aware of their inner experience and/or more open to the person and teachings of a leader to whom surrender or indeed submission is deemed necessary. Some are deliberately deceptive in their blandishments and brutal in their requirements. Most are not. Some groups are authoritarian and require an all but total commitment of time, energy, and money, and some are loosely organized collections of people who come together only for prayer, meditation, or classes.
All of these diverse groups are usually lumped together and labeled as “cults,” — a term the social sciences have been unable to