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arthurbdd's review
4.0
Walks the tightrope of being more even-handed in its treatment of its subject matter (and sympathetic to many of the members of the groups profiled) whilst still teasing out coercive and abusive aspects of the organisations profiled. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/2007/02/21/book-review-spying-in-guru-land/
chramies's review
4.0
William Shaw spent some time in the early 1990s joining cults and religious groups and reporting back what he found. He finds organisations that vary from the the ascetic Hare Krishnas to the batty Aetherius Society, whose flying saucers and SF motif may sound familiar from elsewhere. A prevailing theme is that they are often quite conservative, insisting on celibacy or marriage and on uniform-like clothing. The School of Economic Science, which has been trashed elsewhere as a 'cult', comes across as Eastern philosophy for the upper middle classes but not a cult.
In many cases there is as you might expect a considerable overlap between groups, with one influencing another and people splitting and moving on and founding something new. What he doesn't find is the media-cliche' cult which keeps its members prisoner and brainwashes them, and he is full of anger against the FBI's overreaction to the Branch Davidians at Waco in 1993.
Anthony Burgess's "Earthly Powers" (spoiler alert for "Earthly Powers") culminates in what looks like the Waco siege -- but as it was written at the end of the 1970s is clearly about the murder/suicide dissolution of Jonestown in 1978 -- which group Burgess calls the "Children of God". While according to Shaw the real-life Children of God are one of the very few groups that don't come across as controlling nor conservative, and they believe suicide to be wrong.
For some reason these cults don't seem as prevalent nowadays. Religion is on the slide (with the notable exception of Islam, gathering converts or reverts from across the population) and perhaps nobody has time for the weird cultishness of days gone by when people at least made the effort to make sense of a confusing world around them. Although Shaw doesn't actually say so it is clear that people turned to these cults for the same reason as they turn to drugs, because the world as it is is stacked against them. Or loud music though the rock scene has died in many ways too.
You could say something about sects and drugs and rock 'n' roll here. You could. Although a sect is properly speaking a subdivision of a larger movement, such as Seventh Day Adventists being a sect of Christianity, and which in many cases dwindle to nothing, as do cults (cf. Holy John, Shaw's first example in the book).
There is often an external reason for these declines and falls. Here it could be (at least in the UK) the price of housing and land. Back in the day an aspiring new movement could pick up an old farmhouse or a four-bed semi in a run-down area for a few thousand and do it up and live in it. (part of people's suspicion of the School of Economic Science is that the SES has a property portfolio. But it's been going for several decades and amassed it over that time). Nowadays all property is hideously expensive, especially in London, and while communal or semi-communal living is actually a reasonable response to that problem (why shouldn't there be an alternative to the conventional family for those who don't want to live alone?) there is such a backwash of conservatism that it just doesn't happen.
In many cases there is as you might expect a considerable overlap between groups, with one influencing another and people splitting and moving on and founding something new. What he doesn't find is the media-cliche' cult which keeps its members prisoner and brainwashes them, and he is full of anger against the FBI's overreaction to the Branch Davidians at Waco in 1993.
Anthony Burgess's "Earthly Powers" (spoiler alert for "Earthly Powers") culminates in what looks like the Waco siege -- but as it was written at the end of the 1970s is clearly about the murder/suicide dissolution of Jonestown in 1978 -- which group Burgess calls the "Children of God". While according to Shaw the real-life Children of God are one of the very few groups that don't come across as controlling nor conservative, and they believe suicide to be wrong.
For some reason these cults don't seem as prevalent nowadays. Religion is on the slide (with the notable exception of Islam, gathering converts or reverts from across the population) and perhaps nobody has time for the weird cultishness of days gone by when people at least made the effort to make sense of a confusing world around them. Although Shaw doesn't actually say so it is clear that people turned to these cults for the same reason as they turn to drugs, because the world as it is is stacked against them. Or loud music though the rock scene has died in many ways too.
You could say something about sects and drugs and rock 'n' roll here. You could. Although a sect is properly speaking a subdivision of a larger movement, such as Seventh Day Adventists being a sect of Christianity, and which in many cases dwindle to nothing, as do cults (cf. Holy John, Shaw's first example in the book).
There is often an external reason for these declines and falls. Here it could be (at least in the UK) the price of housing and land. Back in the day an aspiring new movement could pick up an old farmhouse or a four-bed semi in a run-down area for a few thousand and do it up and live in it. (part of people's suspicion of the School of Economic Science is that the SES has a property portfolio. But it's been going for several decades and amassed it over that time). Nowadays all property is hideously expensive, especially in London, and while communal or semi-communal living is actually a reasonable response to that problem (why shouldn't there be an alternative to the conventional family for those who don't want to live alone?) there is such a backwash of conservatism that it just doesn't happen.
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