New Religious Movements
Of the myriad new religious movements which have arisen over the course of the twentieth century, only a few have resorted to violence and mass suicide as a course of action. Perhaps the most famous of these, the so-called Jonestown Massacre, resulted in the deaths of over nine hundred people, and serves as the basis for John Hall's examination of the particular preconditions and precipitating factors which lead one cult or new religion to violence instead of another. Hall's theory is applicable beyond the case of Jonestown, and in fact may be used to better understand the motivating factor behind the mass murder/suicides committed by the Order of the Solar Temple in the 1990s. In particular, by considering Hall's theory in conjunction with the analysis of the Solar Temple deaths given by Jean-Francois Mayer, it will become clear that each of the six preconditions and three precipitating factors defined by Hall as necessary for the outbreak of large-scale violence.
Before examining the case of the Order of the Solar Temple, it will be useful to briefly address Hall's consideration of the Jonestown deaths in his essay "The Apocalypse at Jonestown," in order to explicate the necessary preconditions and precipitating factors which may lead to this kind of violence. The six necessary preconditions are "a charismatic religious social movement; an apocalyptical ideology; a form of social organization adequate to maintain solidarity; legitimacy enough among followers to exercise collective social control over the affairs of the community; sufficient economic and political viability; [and] life within strong social boundaries in cognitive isolation from society at large" (Hall 203). In addition to the internal preconditions necessary as part of the group, there are three external precipitating factors which help to catalyze a preconditioned group into actually committing violence, because as Hall notes, even if "the preconditions are particularly conducive to violence, they are hardly sufficient" (Hall 203). These three precipitating factors which may be observed to have instigated the kind of violence seen in Jonestown and with the Order of the...
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