Under the scientific name of “new religious movements,” this is a phenomenon which has quickly spread throughout Spain. The religious groups are known generally as cults. Many, more or less organized groups with a variable number of followers, extend to the Spanish cities without controlling their activities or the relationships they have with their members.
María del Mar Ramos Lorente, professor of the Department of Sociology (departamento de Sociología) of the University of Granada is the author of the first in-depth study conducted this in Spain on the appearance and disappearance of new religious movements in this country. Her research shows the immense legal vacuum concerning some activities involving religious movements when their followers feel cheated. She gives some examples such as consumers of the so-called “alternative medicine”, leisure and cultural activities, or certain therapies for drug abusers trying to stop using drugs.
“Obviously, at this moment there is no control on the activities of those religious movements,” stated the researcher, “and, at times, these activities harm people who try to leave sects. Some ways to attract followers include: meetings and lectures on cultural topics; visiting people door-to-door; escorting the elderly to the religious meeting itself; or English courses free of charge.”.
A clearly defined role
Forty-eight subjects from throughout Spain took part in the study. Among these subjects, there were members of new religious movements, ex-members, and relatives of members of both groups. Thanks to this research, it has been demonstrated that some ages are more susceptible than others to be lured into one of those movements. “That is, young people and pensioners are more vulnerable to be attracted than the rest of society because of the social process they go through. On the one hand, youth is associated with the searching of ideals, personal identity, and independence. On the other hand, pensioners search a change of their values, because they need to make new sense of their lives. New religious movements invariably claim to offer the appropriate path for those people. “declared María del Mar Ramos.
Ramos indicates that both men and women can be lured into new religious movements, as well as people from all social classes (“there are people with little money and very rich people“). It depends on the new religious movement. The group can offer the subject just what he or she needs at the moment of the first contact. There are vital factors that make it easier to join these religious groups, such as family destructuration (divorce, separation, widowhood, etc.). In these situations, the subject feels empty without the roles that he or she used to play inside the family structure. The researcher also stresses that such people feel that they find the solution to their problems in a religious group because it gives them a solid network of affective and social relationships.
In her study, the professor of the UGR has analysed the needs of people who join cults and what these cults offer them. Finally, she states that “everybody is susceptible to be lured into a religious movement, because everything depends on our own circumstances at the moment in life we are going through.“
Reference:
Prof. María del Mar Ramos Lorente. Department of Sociology of the University of Granada.
Phone: +34 958 248063 – +34 958 248073 Email: mdmrl@ugr.es
