Talk:Cult

Updating

This article is in need of updating, especially the sources. Thinking has changed among academics in the nearly-quarter century since this article was created. Some of the sources are over 50 years old. Valereee (talk) 11:12, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

@Valereee In what way are you noting changes in how this topic is approached, specifically? I'm curious. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:53, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Hey, @PARAKANYAA, some of the sources are over 50 years old, and academic thought has changed a lot in that time. Whether we call something a "cult" has profoundly changed, in particular. Valereee (talk) 21:58, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

@Valereee I agree with that but the answer is probably not much better than it was in the 90s, i.e. cultic studies are pro "cult" label, NRM academics are against it (mostly), and the press don't care and call whatever a cult.

I do agree that the general article needs to be updated but with that specific question I don't think it will be able to be much changed. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:11, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Recent academic publishing doesn't seem to use "cult" very often, except in discussions of whether the term should be used? Valereee (talk) 22:21, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

@Valereee The academic discussion was usually (less now) split between two groups, and (there are several articles/books on the academic debate on this topic itself)

• "Cultic studies", examples being Janja Lalich, Stephen A. Kent, the publication Cultic Studies Review, academics who are usually explicitly "anti-cult", criticized by NRM academics, almost always use the word cult, the smaller movement
• NRM/mainline, almost everyone else. Generally only rarely uses cult. Has been criticized by the Cult Studies academics of being "cult apologists" and the anti-cult movement, by far the larger movement of the two

Cultic Studies academics almost always use cult, NRM scholars rarely do except when discussing public perception. That is the crux of the issue and hasn't changed much. This is less of a thing then it was in the past, as they kind of reconciled, but it is An Issue when you have to deal with sources like pre-2015. The whole debacle is probably notable in and of itself given there is an entire book on it (the "Cult Wars") but the answers are more or less "always" from Cultic Studies academics and "almost never" from NRM scholars (though starting in the 2000s academics did use it in a different way sometimes). This is all off the top of my head so some of the details may be fuzzy. I once wrote a wiki article on a book that covers the whole debate which I feel gives context to the thing: Misunderstanding Cults PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:32, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Whatever the best sources are currently saying, we should be able to find recent sources instead of using ones that are 50 years old. Valereee (talk) 22:37, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not disputing that but the answer is split between two polarized groups of academics, so fixing it will be a pain. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:40, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Hahaha...yep. Sometimes fixing this kind of thing is a pain. When it's a subject I've got expertise and interest in, I often do fix it myself, but in this case I have neither. I placed the tag hoping that someone who does have at minimum interest will want to do the work. Valereee (talk) 22:53, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

@Valereee Really, the bigger problem with this article is that half of it is just piecemail details about specific movements that doesn't have anything to do with the topic as a whole. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:53, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree, see topic below 'Reversion'. I trimmed it back hard, and Grorp disagreed that it needed to be trimmed back that hard. Valereee (talk) 22:56, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

@Valereee I think we can probably have an article on "political cults". The merge was over a decade ago, and provided it fulfills GNG would be better off there than here.

In the mean time, I will be attempting to standardize the reference formatting because I have OCD and I find it helps me get a good look at the literature. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:59, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

You go! Glad it helps in any way. :D Valereee (talk) 23:11, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Guys, the age of the citations is irrelevant and is part of the history of the subject. Things may have changed over time, but then you include content about the history and changes of the subject. You don't simply discard it all in favor of only covering the here-and-now.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 00:17, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

It's fine to use old citations about the history, but not about what RS are saying now. Valereee (talk) 00:18, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

@Grorp For individual facts yes, but for a high level topic that drastically changed its approach (see the swing after waco and then the swing back after Aum), it is probably worth prioritizing more recent sources. This is the "high level" article, so more recent overview sources should be prioritized. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:40, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Reversion

Hey, Grorp. What do you see as particularly valuable about all the historical information about the organizations covered in this section to understanding the article subject? Each of those has its own article. Why do we need all this info here? Valereee (talk) 17:26, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I am currently working on the section. Wait until I am finished.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 17:33, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

@Valereee: I'm finished.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 02:30, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Unmerging political cult

Per above, the list of political cults is a drag on this article and for the quality of this one to be improved it should be removed. However the concept of "political cult" is probably notable and the merge was 11 years ago. Any consensus to split it back out again? PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:51, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA: Well, you already cut it out of the article without any discussion, so I suggest you either put it back in and discuss it, or make an article out of the content you removed. (removed content & removed citations)   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 00:13, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

@Grorp I'm willing to do that provided there is sufficient consensus to undo the merge. Do you think there's enough for a whole article on the concept of "political cults"? I think probably. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:42, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I put the content and sources in User:Grorp/sandbox5, so you can read it there, or copy it, or rename/move it.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 00:52, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

...meaning you could create a standalone article. I don't object to splitting it out of Cult. And come to think of it, it would be better for you to use the content by copying it and noting the copy being from Cult, to keep track of the edit history per wiki guidelines. I just slapped it into that sandbox; and I'll delete it afterwards.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 00:57, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I am irritated but honestly I couldn't find many sources on the topic of "political cults" specifically, other than a single Turkish journal article and the On the Edge book. However the term is used so often it's drowned in a sea of mentions. I feel there should be... something. Can you find anything? PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:27, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I'll look.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 01:34, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I'll add some potential sources here as I find them.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 01:55, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I too think all of this trivial discussion of the cults themselves isn't helpful here. I'd just list and link. Valereee (talk) 13:33, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

References

National values

List five causes of cultism 102.88.68.33 (talk) 11:51, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

If this is a controversial term, then label it as such

The lead is not up to WP:MOS and WP:LEAD standards. English is being tortured (by whom?) and some vague notion of laity is being evoked (by us). If we need to make sure it's clear that there is an idealogical war being waged over this term, let's say it is "controversial" or "contested" or "pejorative" and then we owe the general reader a clear explanation of its common sense everyday meaning. "perceived to be" is vague and does no one any good. "lay" is meaningless as there relevant epistemic community is not specified and probably can't be specified without taking a side. Here is my proposed lead. We start with the common usage and then tack on caveats and modifiers further on in the article:

Cult is a pejorative term for a religious or idealogical group typically led by a charismatic leader who tightly controls the members.

Cheers.DolyaIskrina (talk) 17:44, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@DolyaIskrina I agree with you that it could be written better. The problem with this is that this term has a tortured and inconsistent definition and half the sources about it nowadays are about people fighting about the definition - controversial is perhaps understating it. About the article now: a large majority of this article is citing antiquated works on the definition of cult from religious studies/sociology, which is the discipline that studies what the general person thinks of when they hear cult, but later abandoned the term, so a lot of this article functions as an antiquated snapshot of NRMs.

I tried to cut out the really old sources (of which there is still too much) and extremely bad sources a few months ago, but I had to stop making progress further because I cannot figure out what this article should should be about. Is it about the term cult (would probably be easier to write) or are we going to write about it acting as if it's a concept that has any agreed upon aspects besides a label, which is a very disputed idea. In any case we need to stop using sources that are very clearly just about NRMs without reference to the broader concept (but then what do we use? And then the sources that tend to use the word cult dispute the NRM label...). I keep trying to look at the more recent sources and come to the conclusion that everyone is talking about different things which is hard to write an encyclopedia article from. And that definition, which is currently in the article, seems not great. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:52, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I feel your pain. Like "pseudoscience" there is a demarcation problem with cult. I'm reminded of the quip that the difference between a dialect and a language is an army. I'm willing to try to puzzle this one out if you want help. In the meantime, I just searched the term and an older wikipedia definition came up. "Cult is a term for a group with deviant beliefs and practices, often led by a charismatic leader. The term is controversial and has different meanings in popular culture and academia. " This seems good to me. DolyaIskrina (talk) 18:13, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Yeah certainly something needs to be done here, and the more voices here the better. I like that older definition more than what we have now, and wouldn't mind reinstating it - though in academia there are many divergent senses of the term, so maybe just splitting that between the two is misleading. I think it would help if we had a clearer guide on what we are trying to make this page be about. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:21, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Lead needs rewriting

The lead sentence was recently removed, leaving the article to go straight into a defense. No, you need to describe "What is it?" before you dive into defending contentious contemporary usage. The lead is full of pompous-sounding scholarly-type gobbledygook. The lead should introduce the topic and be a summary of the article. I see no summary in this current lead. Use MOS:LEAD for guidance. Think "How would you describe 'cult' to a child?" Most people will only read the lead. It had better explain "What is a cult?" to the average reader. This is an encyclopedia, not a scholar's battleground.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 18:03, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

My issue with that is the definition of cult I would use to explain to a child is "harmful group of weirdos" which may be difficult to find sourcing support for. We don't get to decide what something is or isn't. I do agree that the sentence as before was a very... bad definition, relative to pretty much anything, but I don't know what we should replace it with. Similar problem to Cargo cult I suppose where defining it tends to get lost in the academic weeds (see the year of arguing on the talk page) PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:07, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I think it would be dangerous for Wikipedia to be so reductive as to call a cult a "harmful group of weirdos". Simonm223 (talk) 18:34, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Simonm223 Then what is it? Because sure, reductive or whatever, I would argue such a definition is far closer to the layman perception (as Grorp appealed to) than arcane academic terminology, which there is almost no agreement on. As such I was not suggesting we use it in the article but trying to illustrate my issue with that argument. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:57, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm going to argue in favor of the "arcane academic terminology."

While we should do everything possible to communicate academic ideas clearly and concisely we should not be reductivist and over-simplify concepts just because laymen might expect something simpler.

As things stand I think the lede is likely to narrow about what a cult may be - however I will say that the recent revision was a net improvement to copy. Simonm223 (talk) 19:12, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Simonm223 And if there are fierce disagreements on the academic front? PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:13, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Then we communicate that. Simonm223 (talk) 19:14, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's possible to, when some of the sources reject the term and view it is a pejorative for a separate topic, some of the sources reject the concept of that separate topic and view it as a euphemism for this one, and some act as if they are separate things. PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:19, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Then we should be describing "cult" as a discursive field in which concepts regarding religion, history and marginality are interrelated in various ways. Which is, unfortunately, getting into that "arcane academic terminology" but may be more accurate than referring to cults as centralized new religious movements with charismatic leadership. Simonm223 (talk) 19:26, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Similar problem to Cargo cult I suppose where defining it tends to get lost in the academic weeds (see the year of arguing on the talk page) (I was involved in those arguments). I think the lead of Cargo cult has actually ended up in a reasonable place. If you go take a look, you'll see that the first paragraph actually defines and summarizes the term, then the second paragraph goes into controversy and colloquial usage. Could something like that be workable here? I do recognize that "cult" is a much broader term, and "cargo cult" is far more specific though. Leijurv (talk) 20:11, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Ideally something like that would be workable, but as you said cult is much broader and with cargo cult there was not a dispute between it applying to religions in Melanesia, which is at least something tying the topic together. This, not so much PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:51, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

What you added is definitely better, but it still raises a lot of questions, in that it is not supported in the body (WP:LEAD, almost everything in the lead should be in the body) and I question how agreed upon this is as a definition. I don't actually think "high control" is the most agreed upon aspect by the public, much less anyone else. Mostly perceived deviance or harmfulness. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:11, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I think "blindly following" is closer than "high control" (though high control should be in the article somewhere). Also, the article was radically altered in late September by you. I'm not even going to look if my version (of concept) used to be in the body. The alterations were so expansive that I quit checking the diffs. Today's edit caught my attention because it removed the first sentence which was a "what is".   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 20:20, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. About my changes: All my edits were in an attempt to address the update tag, mostly reducing usage of old sources and standardizing the citation formatting. This involved trimming some things that were very specific details compared to what this is, a higher level article. I also trimmed some blatantly unreliable stuff like a citation to a random Scribd document by a random guy and stuff just repeating the Falun Gong’s ludicrous claims. I don’t recall adding much except adding bits from a 2024 book to introduce more recent elements. After that point the structure of the article became more aggravating the more I thought about it and I felt I could not improve it further without making structural changes. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:29, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

And yeah we should surely have something onwiki explaining the high control group stuff, because that is a pretty widely discussed concept. I’m surprised we don’t. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:35, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

As I've said above, we should use the everyday commonsense meaning first. We should not say anything about "lay" and ideally we would not even say "a term for" WP:ISAWORDFOR.DolyaIskrina (talk) 20:54, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Then there’s an issue, and a lack of consensus as Simon above just proposed the exact opposite. Because there is no agreement on what this topic is, so you have to discuss it in the sense of varying terms, definitions and academic and popular history. See Cargo cult discussion as mentioned. A substantial portion of discussion of it a is as a label, so that is unavoidable. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:46, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

There are essentially two meanings, one the modern popular "bunch of wierdos" (pretty much restricted to English, I think), and the other the far older, more technical (but by no means "arcane") term for religious devotion. User:Grorp, at the top, seems to think he knows what "cult" means, and is impatient when this article veers away from this meaning, but it MUST do this. Cargo cult is not the best example for the older meaning. Our lead needs to explain why all Hindu temples are centred on a cult image, and most surviving Roman temples were built to support the Imperial cult. Also why the very secular councils of French seaside towns typically provide a noticeboard for Le culte (with details of religious services of all types, also in newspapers, websites etc). In general terms, this older meaning is not at all controversial, nor is it outdated, and this discussion is deep in a rabbit hole because it has pursued one example that is controversial. Johnbod (talk) 22:14, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Johnbod We already have a separate article for the worship sense which means this is about the “bunch of weirdos” definition. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:16, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

What is that other article, and where does this article say that? In that case the title should certainly be disambiguated. But in any case, the different meanings of the word should be explained (as they are in the definitions section). Johnbod (talk) 22:20, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Johnbod It is in the first paragraph of the definitions section, Cult (religious practice). I am against explaining it in the lead as it will confuse the scope further. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:24, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

In a rather Easter Egg link! I think it should be in the lead, not least because important popular meanings such as cult of personality, cult following etc, really come off the devotional meaning rather than the wierdos one. Not confusing people doesn't seem to be going too well! Johnbod (talk) 22:46, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Yeah the link should be changed to be a bit less Easter-egg. And putting it that way, I can understand the rationale behind mentioning it, though I believe it should be kept to a limited degree. We would mention it to make clear it’s distinct - but that is moot as we have no clear definition here. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:50, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

What can I do to get you to stop using "perceived to be"? It's an ungainly, vague, WP:WEASEL phrase. It is a passive construction. It is bad form. If what you are trying to convey is that "cult" will always be a controversial label that is hard to define, than that should be said clearly at one point in the article, but not repeated every time. We can't use wikivoice to say "there is no such thing as a cult, only a perception of a cult" That would fail NPOV.

There was a consensus for the following first sentences. Let's go back to this:

Cult is a term for a group with deviant beliefs and practices, often led by a charismatic leader. The term is controversial and has different meanings in popular culture and academia. DolyaIskrina (talk) 23:48, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@DolyaIskrina The sources are just as weasley! Many, though not all, speak in terms of perception, of what outside sources deem as such, in their definitions. Since we are accurately conveying what they say it is not a weasel word. This is an article on a label as much as it is on a thing; that would only fail NPOV if that is not what the sources say, and plenty of them do deny that is a cult is a thing yes. That is the whole problem! And that definition has been criticized by others in this thread and does not match up with the sources. But again... little agreement. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:57, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Let's go back to the definition that had consensus before and has none of the discussed problems.

Cult is a term for a group with deviant beliefs and practices, often led by a charismatic leader. The term is controversial and has different meanings in popular culture and academia. DolyaIskrina (talk) 00:26, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I understand cutting the perceived by bit but I don't think this is an ideal solution because it misses a lot of the aspects of the term. Not great for a lead sentence. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:48, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm pretty happy with your latest version. Thanks for accommodating my concerns! DolyaIskrina (talk) 16:47, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Reorg suggestion

@PARAKANYAA: I have a suggestion for a simple reorganization that might solve this issue. Since the various factions are still debating the term (right here), perhaps this article should be more of a super-disambiguation article (WP:Summary style), and less about the weirdo def (which it probably was originally, by default). Start off with a very brief list of types of usage of "cult" (common conceptions, new religion, old religious, high control, destructive, doomsday, political, imperial, etc.), then use the rest of the article as-is (definition, scholarly, types, anti-cult, govs).

For example, a new lead might go something like this: "Cult is a term used in many ways. For example, meaning a destructive group, or a high-control group, or worship of a religious icon, or...blah blah blah. The use of cult in a derogatory sense is objected to by the anti-cult movement. Scholars disagree about something something. Some governments consider blah blah."

The types section would give broader summaries than the lead (as it already does), but you should include EACH of the different types of cults. Some are missing or have been folded into other sections; maybe they should be distinctly listed. Of course the "types" would include high-control or weird new religion or common misconception, and they each become one of the types, not a remnant-default of the article.

With this endless debate about how to present the lead, maybe it would calm the contention by making this article about all cults, not by default about the common man's idea of cult = weirdo group, and not one single type as the primary or default.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 01:06, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

As I was drafting the above, you were making changes to the article. They're looking good, and seems like we're onto a similar idea.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 01:09, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

This would be making it more about the term or word, if I understand you correctly. The current state of this article is so unsatisfactory I fail to see how it could be worse as long as we're not doing... this. At some point when an article subject is as confused as this one is, it as a result becomes more about the term, so maybe doing something like what you suggest would be okay. PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, all the argumentation is about "which definition of 'cult' is the predominant/primary/most-important one". If you look at disambiguation pages, list-articles, and WP:Summary style, you'll see a commonality. They are about covering multifaceted topics under the same, or similar, titles. If we demote the common definition of 'cult' to be just one of many types of cults, then perhaps the argumentation will fall away. And then people can focus more on improving the content and sources of their preferred type of cult topic.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 04:09, 28 November 2024 (UTC)