Download or read book Social Science and the Cults written by John A. Saliba and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-03-20 with total page 868 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, first published in 1990, brings together descriptive, comparative, and theoretical materials on cults and sects in Western culture, focusing on literature published since 1970. A historical section links the rise of the new movements to similar past phenomena in Western culture. Other sections examine the methodology of studying religious movements and the various theories which have been brought to explain them, current studies on traditional sects that are sometimes compared to the new religions, and many studies of individual contemporary cults.