Charles Manson Cult Research Paper

Cults: An American Nuisance Brainwashing. Threatening society. Illegal activities. A major threat to society. What did I just describe, one might ask? These qualities describe a cult. A cult is a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc (Dictionary.com). Cults should cease to exist because they threaten the safety of civilians, bend the privileges that the First Amendment grants, and play a negative role on the member's psychological health. Cults should not exist in the United States because they threaten the safety of civilians. An example of this would be that in 1969, members of Charles Manson’s cult slaughtered 5 people in Roman Polanski’s Beverly Hills home, which included the death of Sharon

Another instance of cults terrorized innocent lives was the Aum Shinryko and how they bombed a Tokyo subway with sarin, a very poisonous gas that could result in serious injuries, such as blindness and paralysis (McPadden). The leader of this cult was Shoko Asahara, who had the intention of terrifying civilians into believing that the apocalypse was coming (McPadden). Nearly 6,000 people were severely injured and 13 commuters’ lives were taken on the day of March 20, 1995 (McPadden). While on the topic of cults executing ordinary citizens, here is another example that innocent lives could be at stake. In Nigeria, the Badoo cult has killed an estimate of 30 people, motivated by black

Cults take advantage of this power as if the leader and its members are legal citizens of the United States, they have the rights every other citizen does. Those privileges include the Bill of Rights, where it states what American citizens are permitted to do. To illustrate, David Koresh was the leader of the group known as the Branch Davidians, a breakaway group of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (Collhoff 68). Koresh’s group of followers were led to believe that when good and evil confront, it will be the most cataclysmic confrontation that planet Earth has ever seen (Collhoff 68). Preaching a self-styled gospel that was called the New Light, Koresh, in this said religion, was required to live a polygamist lifestyle, having multiple wives at a time; one wife of his was fourteen, another one being twelve years of age (Collhoff 68). If pedophilia and deceiving people to become a part of a group whose views and activities are considered legal because of the First Amendment, then shouldn’t all citizens be allowed to partake in these activities as