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Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History

by Philip Jenkins

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This work gives an account of cults and anti-cult scares in American history. Contrary to popular belief, cults were by no means an invention of the 1960's. Most of the images and stereotypes surrounding religious fringe movements can be traced to the 19th century.
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Epigraph
A genuine first-hand religious experience like this
is bound to be a heterodoxy to its witnesses,
the prophet appearing as a mere lonely madman.
If his doctrine prove contagious enough to spread to any others,
it becomes a definite and labeled heresy.
But if it then still prove contagious enough to triumph over persecution,
it becomes itself an orthodoxy;
and when a religion has become an orthodoxy,
its day of inwardness is over: the spring is dry;
the faithful live at second hand exclusively
and stone the prophets in their turn.
The new church, in spite of whatever human goodness it may foster,
can be henceforth counted on as a staunch ally
in every attempt to stifle the spontaneous religious spirit,
and to stop all later babblings of the fountain from which,
in purer days, it drew its own supply of inspiration.
WILLIAM JAMES, Varieties of Religious Experience
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In the 1920s, like today, the American media relished a scandal that mixed religion with sexual depravity and crime, and the newspapers found rich pickings in the story of Benjamin Purnell, the head of an odd messianic sect.
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This work gives an account of cults and anti-cult scares in American history. Contrary to popular belief, cults were by no means an invention of the 1960's. Most of the images and stereotypes surrounding religious fringe movements can be traced to the 19th century.

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