366. Jackson, John and Ray Jobling. "Towards an Analysis of Contemporary Cults." In A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain edited by David Martin. London: SCM Press, No. 1. 1968.
The authors note that the Weber/Troelsch church-sect typology was originally conceived as applying to Christian organizations only. Most writing on sects and cults deals with this distinction and attempts to widen its applicability. The term "cult" is used to describe an additional type of organization but with a wide variety of meanings. In anthropology the term may mean either all the religious institutions of a society, especially a pre-literate one, or it more usually refers to the beliefs and practices associated with a particular divinity or set of them as a religious specialty. O'Dea (1966) uses this approach in calling the cult "an acting of feelings, attitudes and relationships" with the sacred, where the acts are "purely expressive."
Howard Becker (1932) limits the use of cult to private religious expressions in a loosely structured, amorphous organizational context whose aim is to provide private ecstatic experience or healing for the devotee, where the member of a church or a sect has some commitment to the organization itself. One does not join a cult but simply follows its practices. There is no admission procedure or organized fellowship in a cult.
Benton Johnson (1963) observes that Christian groups follow the emissary prophecy type, while cults are in the mode of exemplary prophecy, emphasizing personal perfectibility at the expense of social value.
Both these points of view fail to take into account Troelsch's emphasis on mysticism, which relies on spiritual fellowship, not a conscious and hostile rejection of the world, nor do mystical fellowships impose harsher discipline than does the world as is the case with sects. Mystical groups are not intended to be exclusive. They are flexible assemblies for the purpose of edification.
Bryan Wilson (1959a, item 756) treats the cult as a sub-type of the sect, specifically a form of gnostic sect emphasizing the utility of esoteric knowledge in the mundane realm. More recently Wilson has altered his stand and cults are now "manipulationist sects" which innovate and accept the world, rejecting Martin's view that sects necessarily reject the world.
Jackson and Jobling attempt to draw these views together in distinguishing mystic-religious cults, where followers maximize their own experiences of the numinous, in clearly religious terms, and where society is seen as irrelevant. Opposed to this type is the quasi-religious manipulationist world-affirming type, where the aim is greater worldly success for the individual follower and religion is a secondary element. The authors note that the distinction is analytical and dynamic, that members and movements may shift their orientations, and the same movement may attract both types of followers. Indeed, secular and religious motives may be mixed within one follower of any type of religious organization. The forms are non-exclusive and tolerant, in general, where other affiliations are concerned. They are a-ritualistic and individualistic, demanding no collective affirmation of belief or even any social contact. These types are not specifically urban or rural, though the quasi-religious type does well in cities.
In sum, cults are not to be rigorously distinguished from sects and will lie on a continuum of structure between a totally informal decision to accept their creeds and a commitment to structure; they will tend to be individualistic. The world is to be changed one person at a time, and initiation into some state of grace is required before full organizational participation is allowed.
Since the cult offers salvation outside "usual channels" it is a threat to monopolies on these benefits and thus may open up a whole new cosmology to believers. While the cult is a fringe phenomenon, it is not distinct from other religious belief systems.
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