ANTH 166

Rise of Religious Cults

Examination of cult movements, involving comparisons of the ideals, objectives and symbolic processes common to ecstatic religious movements throughout the world -- from Melanesian cargo cults to the Peoples' Temple. Anthropological perspectives are used to examine religious cults as conscious attempts to perpetuate traditional values and social goals or to radically change the status quo; millenarian movements, crisis cults, nature communes, exotic religious importations, and cult characteristics of modern secular movements.

Units: 3.0