C.- A PHENOMENON WITH EXPANSION POTENTIAL
The sectarian phenomenon has been known for a few decades of significant evolutions which influence the currently noted tendencies; a consideration in perspective appreciation additionally shows the tendency to a potential expansion.
It is obviously not possible to proceed within the framework of this report, of which it is moreover not the object, to a historical study of the sectarian phenomenon, in which the specialists underline permanence in time and the universality.
Tite Live in his work "The Sects [Nuns?] in Greece and in Rome" was devoted already to a detailed account of the business of the Orgies, followers of the worship of Bacchus.
Under the Roman empire, the first Christian communities were persecuted as well because of their refusal of the oath to the Emperor as because of the charges of sorcery (night meetings) or anthropophagy (rite of the communion) whose they were the object. The lawsuits in sorcery of which were victims in the Middle Ages until the beginning of the Reform, nearly 100,000 people in Europe testify to persistence to the sectarian phenomenon. The Christian religions are not the only source of examples: thus the Islam whose current esoteric is represented by the Sufism it gave rise to the sect of Hashishins, which fought Holy Land Templiers.
The recent evolution of the sectarian phenomenon makes it possible however respectively to release a certain number of main tendencies relating to the nature of the sects, their organization, the topics developed by them, the way in which they are perceived finally.
A study of the sects currently established in France shows that those settled in two vague but quite distinct groups.
The first emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, which saw religious movements born for the majority in Anglo-Saxon countries [enraciner? coming from the same race? descendents?] from the French society. Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Pentecostals, Adventists, Baptists: all these movements resulting from the protesting world joined their dispute of the official doctrines of the Church to that already expressed by groups resulting from catholic mobility (Antoinistes, followers of the Christ of Montfavet).
The second wave breaks at the end of the years 1960, always coming from the United States, but marked by a greater oriental print on the one hand, esoteric or gnostic on the other hand. It is relevant to note inn particular the International Association of Krishna Consciousness (founded in 1966), Association for the Unification of World Christianity (AUCM, or Moon sect) and Soka Gakka•.
In accordance with the second current, one will cite the groups related to Rosicrucian brotherhood, the Church of Scientology or the anthroposophie [humanism?]. Other sects proposing of the total alternatives founded on ecology (Ecoovie), the belief in extraterrestrial (Movement ra‘lien), the techniques of meditation (Meditation transcendantale), even fraternity (New Acropolis) also make fast great strides.
These oriental and esoteric movements should not however make us forget the permanence, even the rise to power, of movements resulting from the Judeo-Christian trunk, which they are millenarists (Jehovah's Witnesses, nebula of the movements of the New Age) or [guĊ½risseurs?] (Invitation with the Intense Life, IVI).
This evolution, traced rapidly, makes it possible to release a certain number of characteristics:
- increasing proliferation of these movements, relatively recent origin. No classification nor description can be regarded as final or satisfactory, so much of multiple movements mix the kinds or the influences previously definite: if the general information counts with a relative precision the movements being able to be qualified "sects", any enumeration on the matter incurs the reproach to be incomplete, because of its restrictive nature;
- the increasing part which plays in this movement the entirely new organizations of denominational origin proposing a total explanation of the world, to the detriment of the organizations being presented in the form of a secession, a schism of a Church previously established;
- evolution in the nature of the touched public. The Protestant movements of the first wave recruited their followers in relatively underpriviledged mediums, at the adult people, generally of the female sex. The organizations being developed after 1968 were characterized by the youth and the co-education of their public, resulting in general from the middle class.
Beyond these elements relating to the nature of the sects, one in general notes other common points which, without applying to the whole of the sects quoted above, are nevertheless characteristic of an evolution of their structures and topics developed by them: it is thus the way in which are perceived the sects which is deeply modified.
The majority of the sects, continuing in an evolution started long ago, are organized on a pyramidal model guaranteeing the exercise of the capacity to the profit of a person (the guru) and/or of a restricted elite.
Like all the pyramidal structures, they rest on a cut between the basic followers and the leaders, moderated by the existence of intermediate levels, of which the number is reduced as one progresses towards the node.
It is established between these various levels of the complex links of dependence, organizing the distribution of the roles, the knowledge, the capacity. Such a system guarantees the existence of effective filters restricting the access paths to the guru or the elite, protected from the base by their insulation and the symbolic system to be able to them.
Reciprocally, the followers are rewarded for their fidelity by a progression within the sect, materialized by obtaining ranks and diplomas, even by more material benefit. The passage at a higher level is often the occasion of an initiatory ceremony.
Still it is advisable to stress that, in many movements, there coexist several types of pyramidal structures relating to the [cultuelle?] organization of teaching, of the administrative and financial services: this proliferation of the structures still rigidifies the described organization.
With the difference of the topics developed by the schismatic organizations of established Churches, which concentrate on a certain number of criticisms and alternative proposals of a religious nature, the speech held by new the sects makes a broad place with the individual improvement, preferred with the collective action or layman.
It is in this spirit that are generally promoted the topics of the personal example, of proselytism. For this reason is often preached, in various forms, a certain asceticism being characterized by the abstention from a certain number of practices (consumption of tobacco and alcohol), the promotion of new food or sexual practices, even the reduction of the time of the sleep.
To the extreme, such an asceticism can lead to the rupture with the former relations, with work for the partial or exclusive benefit of the sect, even with the conjugal life. Such an attitude of return on oneself or a restricted group is in contradiction with any external engagement with the sect.
It is conceived that the considerable evolution of nature, the structures, the topics developed by the sects modifies considerably the way in which they are perceived.
Whereas until the beginning of the years 1970, the warnings against the sects were before all the fact of the Churches, which were located in a resolutely theological and pastoral logic, overflows of certain organizations, the real or supposed confrontations with law and order or the personal freedoms contributed to a brutal modification in the way in which they are perceived.
This phenomenon resulted in the constitution of associations of defense (Center Roger Ikor, UNADFI in France) and the development of a relatively significant legal dispute. The gravity of the criminal intrigues of certain sects (attacks, collective suicides, assassinations) has rightly moved the media and the public opinion.
| Date | Place | Sect | Number of deaths and circumstances | |
| 18/11/1978 | Jonestown Guyana | People's Temple | 923 | suicide |
| 03/06/1983 | Smithville (Arkansas) | Group Comitatus | 2 | confrontation |
| 15/05/1985 Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) | Move | 11 | confrontation | |
| 19/09/1985 Mindanao (Philippines) | Datu Mangayanon | 60 | suicide | |
| 01/11/1986 Wokayama (Japan) | Church of the Friends of Truth | 7 | suicide | |
| 28/08/1987 Seoul (South Korea) | Park Soon ja | 32 | suicide | |
| 21/08/1992 Naples (Idaho) | Christian Identity Movement | 3 | confrontation | |
| 19/04/1993 Waco (Texas) | Branch Davidians | 88 | suicide confrontation | |
| 04/10/1994 Switzerland and Canada | Solar Temple | 48 5 | assassinations and suicide | |
| 5/03/1995 Tokyo (Japan) | Aoum | 11 dead 5000 injured | attack |
Source: J.P. MORIN - Futuribles - November 1994 - Table supplemented for events after 1994.
If it is advisable not to over-estimate the risks that occur in France of such overflows, an increased vigilance is essential.
And if the media's focus on extremely alarming trends should not result in covering all sects with the same reproach, it does not have either, while putting in "value" of the extreme minority groups, to result in underestimating the risks which the broader movements pose to their followers, a danger much more considerable although - and at the same time, because - it is much less obvious.
This remark is all the more significant since one can today count a certain number of indices which makes one think - and fear - that the sectarian phenomenon has considerable potentialities of development.
