769. Worsley, Peter. The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study of "Cargo" Cults in Melanesia. New York: Shocken Books, 1968.
A classic Marxist study of the millennial process as exemplified by various cargo movements. Worsely attacks the determinism of functionalist views in favor of a view of religion's "competencies:" it is not uniquely fitted to meet certain of society's necessities but can or may do so (following Nadel, 1954). Anthropologists and sociologists need to take into account the meaning of religion to the individual; failing this, groups are reified. Social action theory is needed.
Sociological views of religion must take into account the social effects of religious commitment, and social and cultural determinants of: how belief is "internalized," of ideas of the supernatural and its relation to humans, and of the content of belief. Worsely opposes Spiro (1966) in arguing for a view of [emically conceived] superhuman "powers" rather than "beings." Ecstatic experience is likewise social, though it may be rare, but it will not do as definitive of religion, which requires ideas of the supernatural. Spiro's recourse to the supernatural (or at least the extra-technical) is definitive.
The leader becomes one by taking (political) action. A movement "must always, objectively, be politico-religious," if only in defining its members' relations with the rest of the world (p. xxxvi). All social action is political. Withdrawal is often not possible at all. In any case, the establishment's hostility is all but inevitable. This conflict always strengthens the leader's position within his movement and turns it into an organization. The movement thus changes, and charisma is a process. Important movements occur [only?] among "the disinherited." Arguing otherwise fails to distinguish between millenarian movements (which by definition involve the masses) and millenarian beliefs among coteries. Future millenarianisms must be politically passive. [The Unification Church is a counter-example: see item 57].
All values are ultimately "charismatic," without necessarily being religious. The elements of charisma are personality, leadership, autonomy, innovation, the transcendental, and the "affectual." Charisma is not routinized, which is a contradiction in terms; instead, it becomes tradition. In succeeding generations, the movement refers back to its original leader as a source of legitimization. The movement becomes a church "with a charismatic tradition of origin" (p. l). Expressive aspects of the movement are separable from the organizational. Charisma may attach to a leader after leadership is assumed: e.g., Queen Victoria, and by manipulation of media.
In discussing relative deprivation theory, Worsley notes that Aberle extends his original conception in noting (following Merton) that relative deprivation may ensue from:
"comparing the present to the past; comparing present to the future; comparing self with others. This approach helps us to include all kinds of wants within our theoretical framework and helps explain, too, the interplay between the use of quite traditional modes of thought for explaining the new and strange and, at the same time, the very interest in what is new and strange" (in Worsley's paraphrase (p. lv)).
This perception is important to the ways cults are characterized with regard to their orientation in time, because they generally embody both aspects.
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