Sects & Stats - Overturning the Conventional Wisdom about Cult Members - James R. Lewis

Sects & Stats - Overturning the Conventional Wisdom about Cult Members - James R. Lewis

10 Member versus Ex-member Profiles

Sects & Stats - Overturning the Conventional Wisdom about Cult Members - James R. Lewis

James R. Lewis [+-]
Wuhan University
James R. Lewis is Professor of Philosophy in the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University. He is well-published in the field of new religious movements. His publications and edited volumes include The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, Controversial New Religions (with Jesper Petersen), Scientology, Children of Jesus and Mary (with Nicholas Levine), and, most recently, Violence and New Religious Movements.

Description

In Chapters nine and ten, I turn my attention to the post-involvement attitudes and other characteristics of former NRM members which fly in the face of accepted stereotypes. My earliest quantitative work involved questionnaire research on former members of controversial New Religions. In a series of papers published in the 1980s, I contrasted the attitudes of ex-members and found a high correlation between negative, cult-stereotypical attitudes and exposure to anti-cult socialization. As part of later studies, I gathered more limited data from ex-members of MSIA and OCS, finding, in general, positive attitudes toward their former group. This later phenomenon is explainable, in part, by the ethic of seekership found in the West’s alternative spiritual subculture.

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Citation

Lewis, James. 10 Member versus Ex-member Profiles. Sects & Stats - Overturning the Conventional Wisdom about Cult Members. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 159-172 Nov 2014. ISBN 9781781791080. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=24762. Date accessed: 29 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.24762. Nov 2014

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