200
SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
Only
cult movements
are fully-fledged religions. They can be distinguished fromchurches on the basis of their relatively high tension with their surrounding socio-cultural environment. They can be distinguished from sects in that they constitute or re-main within a
deviant
religious tradition, while sects are schismatic movements within aconventional religious tradition.Cult movements command our interest because they represent
nett
religions. Thus, ifLve would know how religious innovation occurs and the conditions governing whethernew religions prosper or fail, are must examine cult movements.Client cults command our interest because they often
et~ole'ento
cult movements. Re-cent examples of magical therapy cults that evolved into fully-developed religions areScientology (Wallis, 1976) and The Process (Bainbridge, 1978).However, the role of audience cults in generating religious innovation or in ~rovidinga potential pool of recruits for nea7cult movements is still somewhat unclear (Stark andBainbridge, 1980). Obviously, most who are part of the mass audience for occultism nev-er join cult movements. Indeed, some combine their interests in the occult with a firmcommitment to a wholly conventional religious body. Yet, many who do join cults seemto have had prior exposure to audience cults (Balch and Taylor, 1977; Lynch, 1977,1919).We have proposed that cults varv in how general or valuable are the compensatorsthey offer, and the degree of follov,lers' involvement varies in parallel fashion. As cultsrange from fully developed religions do~vno mere promulgators of vague mythology, in-volvement varies from fulltime participation in a cult movement down to mild interestin occult ideas as
a
source of diversion and entertainment.
If
this is so, then Lve can ex-pect to observe several things:
1)
The proportion of the population involved in cults ought to increase as we movefrom the most intense levels of involvement down to the more transient and ephemeral.
2)
Public hostilitv towards cults ought to decline in similar fashion from the more tothe less intense levels
of
involvement. Thus, for example, people ought to be quitestrongly sanctioned for becoming full-time members of a cult movement. But theyshould only be sanctioned very weakly for believing in astrology.
3)
Regional concentration of cult involvement ought to decline as we shift from exam-ining participation in cult movements to esamining interest in audience cults.Elsewhere we explain at length why cults ought to flourish in some places and timesrather than in others (Stark and Bainbridge, forthcoming). We argue that cults thrive~vhere onventional faiths are weak, but where many people still believe in the supernat-ural and desire effective answers to questions of ultimate meaning. Hence, cults willflourish in such places as the Pacific region of the United Starestoday: there the ax7erageperson is
unchurched,
but retains belief in the supernatural.In a previous paper we examined the temporal and spatial distribution of cult move-ments in the United States (Stark, Bainbridge, and Doyle, 1979). We found that the so-cial climate seems everywhere in the nation to have become more tolerant of cults. Yet,we also found dramatic regional differences of the kind anticipated. Cult movements
are
greatly concentrated along the shores of the Pacific, precisely where church membershiprates are much the loa,est in the nation. Ho\vever,
to the extent that
n~lts
re not recognized
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