Black-Magic Cults Ride Manson Coattails
Tuesday, March 3rd, 1970
LOS ANGELES, Mar. 3 – Publicity given to Charles Manson and his “family,” accused of the Tate-LaBianca slayings, has helped popularize black magic-witchcraft cults among same young people, a USC professor said Monday.
Dr. Robert S. Ellwood Jr., USC assistant professor of religion, said that the trend was an example of how some young people are abandoning Judeo-Christian religions in favor of unconventional religious-philosophical movements.
Ellwood said that Southern California, with more than 200 cults and sects, is the center of such activity in the nation.
The majority of the young who reject traditional Western religion are turning to Eastern and Oriental cults such as Zen, Krishna Consciousness and Nichiren Shoshu, Ellwood said. He said that “the drug scene” was an integral part of the cults for many but not all of the movements.
“I don’t think any one of these cults is likely to become a major world religion, but the phenomenon as a whole represents a set of social and psychological trends that could lead to a breakdown of traditional religions of Western culture,” Ellwood said.
“It goes much deeper than a mere dissatisfaction with Catholicism, Protestantism or Judaism. The common denominator is a tendency to seek religious truth within one’s self, a search for a kind of subjective infinity.”
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