Sources of Support

Where do the members of these new religions come from, and why are they attracted? The division of the field into the three analytical types facilitates the answering of this question.

The world-rejecting movement draws its support from the social margins. The classic cases of such movements historically have found their support among the underprivileged and dispossessed, but in the modem world groups may feel themselves to be marginalised by their society, even though they may not objectively be poor or subjected to oppression. The world-rejecting new religions of the 1960s and 1970s largely found their following from among young people who had become part of the counter-culture, seeking to transform their society or their own situation through political radicalism, communal living, or drug use. The optimistic vision of change which informed the New Left, the student movement and anti-Vietnam war protests, the hippie and commune movements, had, by the late 1960s, become considerably tarnished. Student protests had led to violent deaths, communes had disintegrated, and the hippie playgrounds had become a focus of exploitation by drug dealers and freeloaders. Many young people active in, or sympathetic towards, these movements came to believe that human endeavour having failed, effective transformation could only come about through divine intervention. Post-war affluence had fostered optimism and a belief in the feasibility of progress and social justice.

The world-affirming movement finds its clientele from among those who have been affected by the rationalisation of the Western world. The development of the economy and the advance of tech­nology have created a situation in which the public sphere of life in the capitalist West has become dominated by the values ofefficiency, predictabil­ity, rational planning and profitability. Success in the public sphere thus tends in most occupations to be incompatible with the fulfilment of a rich emo­tional life. Successful performance of public roles is often achieved at the cost of an impoverishment of private inner life. Emotion becomes harder to express, feelings are repressed. Spontaneity disappears as we become more deeply embedded in our public roles. The joy of discovery and experiment attenuate as our activities become more routinised, a habit rather than an adventure. Intimacy dissipates in the anonymity, impersonality, segmental- isation and privatisation of urban industrial society.

The world-affirming new religions provided, for those who were relatively successful in the modern world, resources for attaining the expressive release and intimacy denied them in their everyday lives. Through cathartic exercises, encounter, massage and the like, the adherent could escape the guilt and trauma of the past, the inhibition of the present, and attain some temporary community and the opportunity to indulge emotions and secrets normally repressed.

For those who were less successful, the world­affirming movements offered resources for releasing hidden abilities and powers, holding out the promise of achieving the valued goals of the conven­tional world, greater success in their jobs, increased intelligence, improved interpersonal relations and the like. Those who entered Scientology and est were often likely to be aspirants to corporate success. Those who went to Esalen or the Rajneesh ashram in Poona or Oregon were more likely to be drawn from social and educational backgrounds which gave a certain amount of choice as to the future, and sought to direct their lives into creative and imaginative occupations or those providing a service to other people, particu­larly in respect of human development. They were often teachers, social workers, therapists, performing artists and the like. But of course the attrac­tions of liberation from social conditioning and constricting social roles was far more widely attractive at a time of affluence and economic expansion. Many people were willing to expend surplus income in a possible salvational programme in economically buoyant times. Come the recession, however, they were more likely to save on such expenditure, or to direct it to means of holding onto their jobs in more competitive times.

As for the world-rejecting movements, they too were affected by the changing economic climate, albeit indirectly. Recession meant that fewer young people took time out to follow some personal quest for fulfilment in the expectation that worthwhile opportunities would still be available should they decide to return to the conventional world later.

Recession meant that leaving the normal career path almost inevitably entailed unemployment. The counter-culture receded as a significant social phenomenon and fewer young people were on the streets or otherwise unattached, available to be recruited by a new religious movement which offered a vehicle for their idealism.