Thank you for all your amazing work on week 4. Your discussion board on cults was fascinating to read. Many of you created your own cults: Kumiko’s cult would be located in a Japanese forest, Tessilyah’s cult would be called Stitch and be family-oriented, Jayme’s cult would “focus on influencing dejected people who feel wronged by a powerful entity, like religion or their immediate society,” and Leo’s cult would be for emotionally vulnerable people.
Many of you summarized articles about cults and shared other cult related resources. So, what have we learned? As Tarik writes, “Cults are defined as groups that make extensive use of manipulative techniques to advance the leader’s goals.” But also, as some of you pointed out, the word cult has many different definitions. Kadiatou states that “From this article I learned that life after exiting a cult can be very challenging. People go through a lot of emotions reintegrating society which can be very complex and the chance of going back to the cult is high du to all these emotions.” Jamila says, “it made me realize how easy it is to get caught up in a cult. Secondly, it made me realize that cults are not a thing of the past. They are very real and very possible to get inducted into even today. We often think that we have so much access to information that we are smart enough to remain safe from cults, but the reality is that it is incredibly easy to find yourself sucked into the black hole of a cult.” And Karla warns: “There are currently so many cults organized around many various types of beliefs that no one can honestly declare that they would never be acceptable to a cult’s vibe.” So–watch out, everyone–use your critical thinking skills to navigate the world.
Quiz 4 was a great way to review claims. If I deducted points, it’s because: your answers were incorrect or incomplete–try to support your claims with evidence such as an example.
Looking forward to Post 5 and seeing you as “authors” in the class!
Prof. Barnes
