The emergence of religion was due to many different factors, the main of which was a person's fear of death. Historically, it so happened that various religious cults played a very important role in human life, since it was the priests who were the main keepers of knowledge about the world around them. For example, such an important invention as the calendar was invented by the priests and had not only mystical, but also purely practical significance necessary for the survival of mankind - the lives of many people depended on the correct choice of the time of sowing and harvesting.
Since the creation of the first state formations, it was the laws of religion that were adopted as the basis for building society, and the caste of priests played an important role in the processes of managing the human mass. Over time, the institutions of the church and the state apparatus have developed a unified system of both legal and moral values, thanks to which mankind has come to modern civilization. It would be a mistake to consider the role of the clergy to be purely negative, and to classify representatives of the clerical class as obscurantists and retrogrades. At various stages of the formation of civilization, the church played both a positive and a negative role, and an assessment of its actions cannot be made without taking into account the peculiarities of a particular era.
The processes of revision of certain religious concepts were constantly going on in human society. As the knowledge of mankind expanded, the official representatives of the clergy were forced to abandon a number of dogmas and adapt to new realities. In addition, in any religion, schisms and the emergence of new trends constantly arose - they were due to both the interpretation of religious knowledge and purely "worldly" problems. For example, if Lutheranism aimed to revise some of the positions of Catholicism, then the emergence of the Anglican Church was due to the desire of the English king Henry to rule the country alone, without looking back at the Holy See. And one should not think that such questions concerned only Christianity. In the same Islam or Judaism, there have always been different trends,declared by the supporters of the orthodox trends as heresy, with which various kinds of struggle were waged.
The principles of individual freedom and the way of thinking, on which our modern society is built, were laid down more than 300 years ago by European humanist philosophers. They not only gave a great impetus to the separation of spiritual and secular power, but also led to a gradual decline in the role of religion in the life of every person. Freedom of religious views greatly simplified people's lives, although, like any phenomenon, it had its positive and negative sides. One of these negative aspects was the emergence of religious sects.
Sects in one form or another have existed from the very beginning of the emergence of religion. There have always been individuals who thought “not like everyone else” and tried to attract supporters to their point of view. Moreover, in the overwhelming majority of cases, it was not so much about issues of relations with higher powers, but about the personal benefit of their leaders. And while the church was endowed with power, almost equal to the state, such organizations were suppressed and rooted out in every possible way, up to physical destruction. The principles of freedom removed any restrictions from the sects and stopped all sorts of persecutions against them.
Immediately it is necessary to stipulate the main difference between the sect and the "official" religion or some kind of movement within it. Different faiths never come into conflict with the authorities, placing "worldly" laws above church laws; that is, any parish priest cannot call for a change in government or claim that his words are the ultimate truth. In sects, the principle of complete submission to one's spiritual leader, unquestioning faith in his words and complete submission to him operate.
It is the complete submission to the spiritual leader that unites under the concept of a "sect" such seemingly different organizations as the Amish retrograde community, "stuck" in the 17th century and not using any achievements of modern civilization with terrorists from "Aum Shinrikyo", who staged a chemical attack in underground. What makes people obey their leader unquestioningly? There is an opinion that sects are all made up of easily inspired or simply illiterate people, for whom the information received in the sect is almost a revelation and they agree to everything in order to follow the doctrine of their organization. However, how to explain the fact that more and more educated and intelligent people are found among members of various spiritual, occult or pseudoscientific movements, such as Scientologists?
Many researchers of the sects argue that the number of people in the sects who really came to them of their own free will does not exceed 20-30%. Others fall under the influence of sects or under the influence of some form of hypnosis or blackmail. There is no direct evidence for this, however, looking at the mass hysteria of the members of the sect during their "divine services", one will inevitably think that a normal person is hardly capable of such actions of his own free will.
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There are also opinions that with the help of sects and similar organizations, new methods of managing people are being tested, which cannot be verified using ordinary means and methods - after all, such experiments on people are prohibited in many countries. These opinions have a right to exist, since information within the sect, as a rule, never gets out, and the charter of a religious organization prohibits any controlling state bodies from interfering in its activities.
An important fact is that most of the sects appeared in the United States. Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, Scientologists, Hare Krishnas - these are their most famous representatives. In addition, the activities of such organizations in the United States are not only not condemned, but even encouraged. And, given the lobbying nature of the American state, the conclusion suggests itself - it is beneficial to some of the ruling elites. Aren't the Americans planning to use sects to implement some new project of their own to expand their influence? It is quite possible - after all, to maintain their leadership, in the current conditions they need at any cost …