Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History

by Philip Jenkins

In Mystics and Messiahs --the first full account of cults and anti-cult scares in American history--Philip Jenkins shows that, contrary to popular belief, cults were by no means an invention of the 1960s. In fact, most of the frightening images and stereotypes surrounding fringe religious movements are traceable to the mid-nineteenth century when Mormons, Freemasons, and even Catholics were denounced for supposed ritualistic violence, fraud, and sexual depravity. But America has also been the home of an often hysterical anti-cult backlash. Jenkins offers an insightful new analysis of why cults arouse such fear and hatred both in the secular world and in mainstream churches, many of which were themselves originally regarded as cults. He argues that an accurate historical perspective is urgently needed if we are to avoid the kind of catastrophic confrontation that occurred in Waco or the ruinous prosecution of imagined Satanic cults that swept the country in the 1980s.

Without ignoring genuine instances of aberrant behavior, Mystics and Messiahs goes beyond the vast edifice of myth, distortion, and hype to reveal the true characteristics of religious fringe movements and why they inspire such fierce antagonism.

Genres: Religion, History, Nonfiction, Cults, Occult, American History

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

John Philip Jenkins was born in Wales in 1952. He was educated at Clare College, in the University of Cambridge, where he took a prestigious “Double First” degree—that is, Double First Class Honors. In 1978, he obtained his doctorate in history, also from Cambridge. Since 1980, he has taught at Penn State University, and currently holds the rank of Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of the Humanities. He is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion.

Though his original training was in early modern British history, he has since moved to studying a wide range of contemporary topics and issues, especially in the realm of religion.

Jenkins is a well-known commentator on religion, past and present. He has published 24 books, including The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South and God's Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe's Religious Crisis (Oxford University Press). His latest books, published by HarperOne, are The Lost History of Christianity and Jesus Wars (2010).

His book The Next Christendom in particular won a number of honors. USA Today named it one of the top religion books of 2002; and Christianity Today described The Next Christendom as a “contemporary classic.” An essay based on this book appeared as a cover story in the Atlantic Monthly in October 2002, and this article was much reprinted in North America and around the world, appearing in German, Swiss, and Italian magazines.

His other books have also been consistently well received. Writing in Foreign Affairs in 2003, Sir Lawrence Freedman said Jenkins's Images of Terror was “a brilliant, uncomfortable book, its impact heightened by clear, restrained writing and a stunning range of examples.”

Jenkins has spoken frequently on these diverse themes. Since 2002, he has delivered approximately eighty public lectures just on the theme of global Christianity, and has given numerous presentations on other topics. He has published articles and op-ed pieces in many media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, New Republic, Foreign Policy, First Things, and Christian Century. In the European media, his work has appeared in the Guardian, Rheinischer Merkur, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Welt am Sonntag, and the Kommersant (Moscow). He is often quoted in news stories on religious issues, including global Christianity, as well as on the subject of conflicts within the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, and controversies concerning cults and new religious movements. The Economist has called him “one of America's best scholars of religion.”

Over the last decade, Jenkins has participated in several hundred interviews with the mass media, newspapers, radio, and television. He has been interviewed on Fox's The Beltway Boys, and has appeared on a number of CNN documentaries and news specials covering a variety of topics, including the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, as well as serial murder and aspects of violent crime. The 2003 television documentary Battle for Souls (Discovery Times Channel) was largely inspired by his work on global Christianity. He also appeared on the History Channel special, Time Machine: 70s Fever (2009).

Jenkins is much heard on talk radio, including multiple appearances on NPR's All Things Considered, and on various BBC and RTE programs. In North America, he has been a guest on the widely syndicated radio programs of Diane Rehm, Michael Medved, and James Kennedy; he has appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air, as well as the nationally broadcast Canadian shows Tapestry and Ideas. His media appearances include newspapers and radio stations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Brazil, as well as in many different regions of the United States.

Because of its relevance to policy issues, Jenkins's work has attracted the attention of gove

Reviews

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well...this isn't a bad read. I picked it up as I was or had become interested in cults and cultic movements in the US. I was primarily interested in examples of various cults, their histories and possibly their effects on individuals and society as a whole.

This book has some of the examples but the writer here is primarily interested in proving his theory that cults are not as much of a modern phenomenon as we tend to think.

That's somewhat interesting and if that is what you're looking for you may find this a bit more interesting than I did. Personally I'd like to have seen more about the actual cults and cultic movements. However for what it does it's not a bad read only a bit biased as he has a point to prove.

[Fishface · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting read that discusses the origins, rise and fall of many minority religions in the USA. The author gives only a faint sense of what each group was like -- the individual colors and flavors, you might say -- so it got to be hard to tell them apart as he plowed through. But he also talks about where they got their ideas and who took ideas from them later on. As I read it came to me that I was aware of a number of new scams along these same lines that might appear in a later edition. Plus ca change.

[Susie Meister · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jenkins responds to the public concerns over cults. He argues that there has been no period in which we cannot find numerous groups more or less indistinguishable from the most controversial modern movements. Generally Jenkins calls them "fringe religious movements" instead of the perjorative term "cults". He demonstrates how the American religious landscape and its focus on apocalypse throughout its history makes this movements a natural fit in American culture. Jenkins shows patterns of cult activity that are linked to the coming of age of baby boom periods and believes the next wave should be occurring now. He points out how many of the now-accepted religions in the US were once considered threatening cults. He believes fears of cults are driven by changing views of gender and sexuality and the perceived threat of these groups has been magnified by the media boom. The existence of cults also validates the apocalyptic fears of Christians and others. Anti-cult literature encouraged the hysteria (which we also seem with the polygamy literature).

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting, scholarly and sympathetic view of cults in the last two hundred years of American history. Jenkins does a thorough job of showing that all the cult-scare activities of the 1960s-80s have direct historical parallels from about fifty years beforehand. It's like there's nothing new under the sun or some such thing.
Here are some of his caution-urging quotes:

If there are pseudoreligions, there must be true religions, but which ones are they? What exactly is a harmful or eccentric doctrine? What forms of authority are unduly onerous or intrusive? What types of sexual expression are unorthodox? And how does one condemn one offending faith without stigmatizing virtually all beliefs...?

It is rhetorical necessity that leads opponents to declare that the cults of a given decade are always unprecedented, always more shocking or bizarre than earlier groups.... Likewise, the present and future strength of the new sects is always portrayed in the most exaggerated terms. Not only are the cults always with us, but at least in public perceptions, the cult problem is always worse than it has ever been.

All of this may be true, and it is probably also true that new religious impulse and corresponding religious reaction are marks of the spiritual (moral or intellectual or psychological or whathaveyou) vigor of a society and as such should be welcomed rather than excoriated. And yet there are a whole lot of deviant sex, finance, and power incidents that he brings up as a real part of practically all of the cult activity he mentions. Probably it remains true that we can scratch our religious itches in really good and effective ways without following a self proclaimed messiah into the wilderness (although, as Jenkins suggests, that does seem to condemn regular old Christianity too-- see for instance Heb 13:13. Ah well!)

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to DNF this one about halfway through, mostly because I had to return it to the library. But also, the writing was so dry and academic that it wasn't really holding my attention even though the topic was interesting. The foundation of America as a place for religious freedom seems to have allowed fringe religious movements and cults to flourish, but I only made it to the 1930s of this history. Some of the movements that were considered cults years ago, like Mormons, Christian Science, and Jehovah's Witnesses, are more mainstream now (though in many aspects still very much like a cult). There was a chapter about Black religious movements like the Black Muslims or the Black Hebrew Israelites and the parallels between these and white cults and the backlash against them. I was looking forward to more recent cults but seeing that there were still many chapters about the 1940s and 50s before hitting the cult hotspot of the 60s just made me feel so tired.

[Katherine Addison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quite interesting book about the last two hundred years or so of American religious history, from the perspective of the fringes. Jenkins observes that "cult" activity happens in cycles of expansion and backlash (he also points out that what people mean by the word "cult" is very poorly defined). He also talks about the very permeable barrier between fact and fiction, and the way that information about cults starts in one, moves to the other, then moves back to the first; an obvious charlatan can start a religious movement, and stories about cults are at least as important in the cultural history of cult activity as cults themselves. (He includes H. P. Lovecraft in his list of "Major Religious and Mystical Figures" born between 1874 and 1890, right along with Aimee Semple McPherson and Edgar Cayce.) The book is rather dry, but extremely thought-provoking.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a longstanding fascination with cults. I'm from Southern California (a hotbed for cults throughout history). Heaven's Gate happened while I was in high school in a nearby city. I grew up with a lot of Mormons whose own religion was considered a cult before it gained more mainstream respectability. Jonestown was an organization whose earlier interracial community-minded impulses would have appealed to me...before the sex and suicide stuff. This book covers these religious groups and many more and honestly just a lot of American history. Reading this had me constantly googling people and movements, and adding even more books to my to-read list on this general subject.

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not strictly about the specific details of various cults but more of the history of cults and America's reaction to them. This really hammers home that all mainstream religions were cults at their start until they became accepted as normal. It was amazing to see how much history of all these sects and cults have come and gone in just the past 130 years. I had not heard of much of what was going on prior to the 60's in this area.

[Evan Buehler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book went into too many specifics with references to book titles, authors, movies etc related to cults. Skimmed through a lot of the second half of the book as it was repetitive. Book was longer than what it should have been.

[Gary Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jenkins is a professor of history and religious studies at Penn State.

Interesting book. Good book to scan rather than read cover to cover. The first issue for the author was trying to define the word “cult”. He points out many established religious groups of today were considered cults (or at the very least were victims of violence) at one time such as the Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Christian Science, Quakers and Baptists.

Groups

He covers almost every conceivable group. Many I had heard of (Theosophy, the KKK, Voodoo, Cannibalism, Zombies, Witchcraft and Black Muslims, Scientology, Satanism, Wicca and Neopaganism) some I even studied their teachings or attended services (such as Unity, Religious Science, Christian Science, New Age, New Thought, Spiritualism, Rosicrucian) and many I never had heard of.

The author mentions one case about black Muslims. When they were sometimes sent to jail, they would ask for a copy of the Koran. The guards said, “That’s what we put you in prison for, read the Bible instead”.

People

One common aspect of all groups was the need to have a leader. He writes about leaders such as Edgar Cayce and Charles Manson. Several leaders claimed themselves as god incarnate, such as Father Divine (whose followers believed he was god). He writes about Harry Houdini, who attempted to debunk séances and mediums. Arthur Bell claimed it was American planes bombed Pearl Harbor. He was arrested for providing false information about the US war effort. Charles Coughlin, a popular Catholic priest, (the Glenn Beck of the day) had a radio program. He was anti-Semitic and pro-German. Roosevelt wanted to silence him without alienating Catholic voters.

Women leaders included Mary Baker Eddy and Sister Aimee Semple McPherson. One of the female leaders said, “The next Messiah maybe a woman. Perhaps she has already been born”.

In 1656 Quaker James Nayler staged an entry into the city of Bristol, England mounted on a donkey, while faithful women followers threw branches in his path and cried “Hosanna to the son of David”. He said he was reenacting the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. He denied he was Christ, but did feel the Christ within.

According to this author, former Vice President and Presidential candidate Henry Wallace referred to Nicholas Roerich as his personal guru. Roerich was involved in occult practices. However, when checking with Wikipedia, there is no reference to Roerich being involved in the occult. There is one reference to Roerich being involved in Theosophy and yoga. The same reference acknowledges Wallace’s connection.

Actions

Author writes about groups and their unusual practices such as “speaking in tongues” a strange language unknown to linguists usually followed by someone who interprets what was said. Other ideas or concepts include “We are all divine”. Some practiced nudism. Other groups felt aliens from UFO’s provided them with new spiritual knowledge. Handling of snakes was also discussed in the book.

The author writes about discrimination faced by many, who followed a different path and goes in depth about harassment of Catholics.

Many groups incorporated God as both male and female. Christian Science and Shakers. The author also says Mormonism. David Koresh prayed to God the Father and Mother. Christian feminist groups praying to Sophia.

JW believe government is of the devil and that is the reason for not saluting the flag or voting.

One group dismissed monogamy as “idolatrous love”.

Between 1864 and 1974, conservative Christians made several attempts to amend the US Constitution to state very clearly this country is a Christian nation.

Another concept was “There is no separation between your soul and the soul of the universe. In the deepest sense, you are the great universal soul. Man is God incarnate.” Ralph Waldo Trine.

The press had a large impact on shaping the validity of many of these groups. With religious bodies, which attracted African Americans, the press would print words as they were pronounced such as “faith’ll make it well ag’in”, but would not use the same procedure with the way many whites in different parts of the nation spoke, such as when Roosevelt said there was nothing to fear, but “feah itself.”

Overall interesting book. Very comprehensive.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used this book for a Graduate course on False Messiahs and Cults. It was an interesting read that was quite entertaining. I enjoyed the history of the cults and false messiahs/prophets in America; there is a history that was longer than I anticipated regarding American cults. Quite amazing how many religions were deemed cults, now are mainstream. However, it is equally amazing how “religions” that should be labeled as cults have survived over a century with growing following over time. Jenkins is a wonderful historian; reading his books feel like entertainment at times instead of just for education. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to know the history of cults, messiahs, mystics or certain religions in America. Very eye opening; there is more to our nation’s religious history than what suspect.

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first 2/3rds of this book were great. I was especially impressed by the chapter delineating the difference between cults, sects, religions and the movement between the three. The tracking of the cyclical nature of cult formation and public reaction was also fascinating and is probably the most important thesis put forth by this book.

The last third barely talked about new religious movements at all. It only spoke of cults that *didn't* exist, millennial doomsday cults that are already gone or anti-cult/sect movements. I was deeply disappointed in this.

Besides this, there were several factual errors, such as including The Church of Satan at all or some of the information on The Process.

It is still very much worth reading, but would probably benefit from a revised edition edited by someone more familiar with cults and sects from 60s up to today.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book by Mr. Jenkins I have read this year and I enjoy his insights into American history, specifically in the intersection between public policy, the mass media, and moral panics. This book deals with new religions, or "cults" as they are often labeled in the media and by opponents, rightly or not. I especially appreciated Mr. Jenkins' insights about Waco, Heaven's Gate and Jonestown, along with his perspectives on religions that were identified as cults, such as the Mormons and Christian Scientists.

[Matthew]

Insightful. It has changed my perspective on a lot of things, and has made me increasingly sceptical of many of the claims made by certain contemporary organizations as to the depravities carried out by certain fringe groups. I wish I had a stronger background in this area in order to determine the validity of his claims, but for now they definitely feel right.

[Ken · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spent about two hours reading and skimming this book today, and I think that I got the main point. America has been a hot bed for religous kooks and odd ball cults since the very beginning. I want to check out Aimee Semple McPherson, and the founder of The Silver Shirts at Wikipedia. Jenkins is a very good religious historian, and I have several more of his books in my lists at the library.

[[Name Redacted]]

I feel like I should give this book a chance, but while Jenkins is often a remarkably astute and thorough scholar, he also has a clear axe to grind against Mormons and a weirdly dismissive attitude towards any other non-Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant manifestation of Christianity.

[A.J. Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important, and timely, book.

[Brittany Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting approach to religion and how the media spins the bias... Jenkins is an excellent read and presents the material in a pretty unbiased way.

[Adrian Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing study into the diversity of the United States and where it has led us in terms of religion.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for my Cults in America class at Illinois Wesleyan. Good stuff, it goes through the history of the cult booms and busts in the US.