Presenting a definition of “sect” that is accepted by everyone is not a simple matter. This is because one and the same term can have different readings, even depending on whether it is studied from the religious or the sociological point of view.

The etymological root of the term sect is found in the Latin verb secare, which means “to cut, to separate, to break with, etc.”. If we approach the meaning of sect from traditional religious language, we can cite the following definitions:

“A sect, in traditional religious language, has distinctly pejorative overtones. By opposition to ‘Church’, ‘sect’ designates a small secessionist group gathering the disciples of a heretical master”[1]

“In religion a distinction is usually made between sect and Church. The Church is universal, open to all; the sect is only for the ‘pure’, the ‘saved’. The Church has various degrees of belonging: there are fervent and non-fervent members. The sect is only for initiates and militants. The Church accepts being enriched and evolving; the sect does not. The Church acts through evangelization and dialogue, the sect through proselytism. The Church accepts human realities (politics, culture, society, entertainment, etc.); the sect is negative towards human realities…”[2]

“The sect is characterized by being a closed religious group born in opposition to the established institutional Churches and in opposition to the world.”[3]

“We could, without any dogmatism, define the sect as that human group in which each and every one (not just some) of the following characteristics are present: pyramidal organization, unconditional submission to the leader, whether personal or collective, suppression of internal criticism, pursuit of political and/or economic objectives masked under an ideology of a spiritual kind, whether religious or philosophical; instrumentalization of the followers for the sect’s own ends; absence of control or oversight of the sect by any other religious or philosophical authority”[4]

“A sect is a group of religious and philosophical tendency that unites its followers around a venerated master. Nowadays it tries to take on a para-scientific and often therapeutic appearance. It is likewise characterized by elitist, highly particularist and closed behaviour. Finally, it displays a more or less marked intolerance and a vigorous proselytism that uses propaganda methods and procedures”[5]

“Sects are religious groups, generally small, full of enthusiasm, made up of men and women, voluntarily associated after a conversion, who believe they have detected the truth and salvation, radically exclude everyone else, set themselves against the Churches and against the world, and blindly obey their founders”[6]

“Sects are voluntary associations…, with a strong sense of identity…, which demand of their members a full and conscious submission which, if it does not eliminate all other commitments, must at least be placed above them, whether they refer to the State, the tribe, the class or the family group… They regard themselves as an elite… as a group apart, claiming, if not always an absolutely exclusive salvation, at least the greatest goods. They also show a certain inclination towards exclusivism… The fact of belonging to a particular sect therefore implies a distancing, and perhaps a hostility, towards other sects and religious groups… They expel those who show themselves unworthy of them… Self-control, conscientiousness and rectitude are important characteristics of sectarianism… They appeal to some principle of authority other than that inherent in the orthodox tradition… the authority upheld by a sect may be the supposed revelation of a charismatic leader, may consist in a reinterpretation of the sacred writings, or may be the idea that the true faithful will obtain a revelation by themselves”[7]

“Destructive sects are pseudo-religious, pseudo-philosophical or pseudo-cultural organizations, with a pyramidal and totalitarian structure, dedicated to recruiting followers in order to exploit them by means of false promises and techniques of psychological coercion, always for the benefit of their leaders’ thirst for power and profit”[8]

Characteristics of destructive sects

Among the fundamental characteristics of a destructive sect are:

1. A group held together by a demagogic doctrine (religious or socio-religious) and headed by a charismatic leader who is the divinity itself or someone chosen by it, or else a possessor of the “absolute truth” in any social sphere.

2. A theocratic, vertical and totalitarian structure, in which the word of the leaders is a dogma of faith. The leaders intervene even in the most intimate and personal details of their followers’ lives and demand that their orders be carried out without the slightest criticism.

3. They demand total adherence to the group and force members (under psychological pressure) to break all previous social ties upon entering the cult: parents, partner, friends, work, studies, etc.

4. They live in closed communities or in total dependence on the group.

5. They suppress individual freedoms and the right to privacy.

6. They control the information that reaches their followers, manipulating it to their convenience.

7. They use sophisticated neurophysiological techniques — masked under the “meditation” or “spiritual rebirth” of the followers — causing them in many cases serious psychological harm.

8. They advocate a total rejection of society and its institutions. Outside the cult, everyone is an enemy (polarization between good-sect and evil-society); society is garbage, and the people who live in it are of interest only insofar as they can serve the group.

9. Their primary activities are proselytism (gaining new followers) and the collection of money (street collections, courses, commercial and industrial activities, and even clearly criminal ones). In the case of multinational sects, the money is largely sent to the headquarters of each group.

10. Under psychological coercion, they obtain the handover of the personal assets of new followers to the sect, or of large sums of money in the form of “courses” or “audits”. Members who work outside the group hand over all or a large part of their salary to the sect. And those who work in cult-owned businesses receive no wages (the payrolls of those businesses are only an illegal cover, since they are never actually paid — or the money is returned — by their members, the workforce).

These and other definitions can be found in the book Para conocer las sectas, by Juan Bosch.

In the coming instalments I will specify which of these characteristics are unmistakably present in the organization of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

NOTES

  1. Alain Woodrow, Les nouvelles sectes, Seuil, Paris 1977, pp. 11-12 ↩
  2. Juan Díaz Vilar, Las sectas, un desafío a la pastoral, Northeast Hispanic Catholic Center, New York 1987, pp. 23-24 ↩
  3. Roger Mehl, Tratado de sociología del protestantismo, Studium, Madrid 1974, p. 252 ↩
  4. Cesar Vidal, El infierno de las sectas, Mensajero, Bilbao 1989, 12 ↩
  5. Albert Samuel, Para comprender las religiones en nuestro tiempo, Verbo Divino, Estella 1989, p. 189 ↩
  6. J.M. Ganuza, Las sectas nos invaden, Santiago 1990, p. 14 ↩
  7. Bryan Wilson, Sociología de las sectas religiosas, Guadarrama, Madrid 1970, pp. 26-27 ↩
  8. Text by André Dénaux, quoted by Pilar Salarrullana, Las sectas, op. cit., 53 ↩