Sociology

"There is no doubt in my mind that in the majority of quarrels the Hindus come out second best. But my own experience confirms the opinion that the Mussalman as a rule is a bully, and the Hindu as a rule is a coward. I have noticed this in railway trains, on public roads, and in the quar­rels which I had the privilege of settling. Need the Hindu blame the Mussalman for his cowardice? Where there are cowards, there will always be bullies. They say that in Saharan­pur the Mussal­mans looted houses, broke open safes and, in one case, a Hindu woman's modesty was outraged. Whose fault was this? Mussalmans can offer no defence for the execrable conduct, it is true. But I, as a Hindu, am more ashamed of Hindu cowardice than I am angry at the Mussalman bullying."

"This research lines up with many anecdotal stories we heard after the tragedy from kids who suffered physical and psychological abuse at the hands of their classmates at the school. One story in particular stands out. When Tom went to the sheriff's department in the fall of 1999 to retrieve Dylan's car from the impound lot, a county employee offered his condolences and told him how his own son's hair had been set on fire by some other students while he was attending Columbine High School. The boy, who sustained fairly serious burns to his scalp, refused to allow his father to go to the administration because he was afraid it would make the situation worse. Shaking with anger as he spoke, though the incident was no longer recent, the outraged dad told Tom he had wanted to take the school apart "brick by brick.""

"Bullying is one violent way that boys try to demonstrate their masculinity. Smaller, physically ineffectual boys are often singled out as targets of bullying by older boys. The captain of the debate team at Heath told us how he had his head knocked into the lockers on one occasion, and was beaten up by a bigger kid on the bus on another. One (not small) freshman told us that for months he would dodge behind a teacher when he saw an older bully coming, to avoid receiving hard punches on the shoulder that "really physically hurt." Another senior told us that he witnessed a group of twelve older boys chase and tackle younger and smaller ones for fun. Students described bullying and harassment as an everyday occurrence in the hallways, in "flex time," and in the bathrooms and said that despite its prevalence, teachers were either unaware of it or unable to stop it. Bullying makes it possible for more powerful students to call attention to their superiority on grounds that favor them. Scholarly students told us that bullying was often initiated by farm boys who had been held back at least one grade and often two and resented the brighter futures of the college-bound kids. Pushing others around was a means for these kids to draw attention to the ways that they were strong and others weak (literally)."

"Bullying is a learned behavior. Children are not born cruel. Babies in diapers do not assess each other as too fat, too poor, too dark-skinned, to nerdy, too conceited. Born innocent, they start learning stereotypes as soon as they understand language, and we see bullying behavior in children as young as toddlers. Since preschoolers who display marked aggressiveness have a higher likelihood of being bullies in older grades, the earlier intervention begins, the better the results. It is much easier to inculcate kindness and acceptance into a five-year-old who acts like a bully than a fifteen-year-old who acts like a bully."

"Loyalty is not an entitlement. It must be earned, both by leaders and by those who follow them. And even when loyalty has been earned, it must have limits. (Who among us can forget being asked by our chiding parents, "If your friend told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?" Every day we see misplaced loyalty contributing to problems such as bullying, hazing, sexual harassment, discrimination, and corruption. To be sure, it can be difficult to say no to someone in a position of power who is using loyalty as leverage, especially when that person makes it clear that they expect total and unconditional loyalty. But that's where loyalty must meet moral courage, if we are to act honorably and do what's right."

"BULLYING. A form of harassment that includes acts of aggression by Service members or DoD civilian employees, with a nexus to military service, with the intent of harming a Service member either physically or psychologically, without a proper military or other governmental purpose. Bullying may involve the singling out of an individual from his or her coworkers, or unit, for ridicule because he or she is considered different or weak. It often involves an imbalance of power between the aggressor and the victim. Bullying can be conducted through the use of electronic devices or communications, and by other means including social media, as well as in person."

"Despite the press's obsession with bullying and misfits, that's not how the boys presented themselves. Dylan laughed about picking on the new freshmen and "fags." Neither one complained about bullies picking on them- they boasted about doing it themselves."

"I was a victim of bullying. I think with the cyber bullying, the viciousness, the cruelty, that's what I think is really getting people's attention. It's hard to say that bullying in and of itself is going to lead to a suicide attempt, but if a kid is already having difficulty with family issues, or some mental health issues, bullying could really be the thing that pushes them over."

"If you don't give power to the words that people throw at you to hurt you, they don't hurt you anymore — and you actually have power over those people. … So, if you can, realize that the things that people say about you — they don't really matter — it's who you are. And the older you get, the more you'll understand that — because it gets better. And people get nicer too."

"The more animosity reporters sensed, the deeper they probed. What was it like to be an outcast at Columbine? Pretty hard, most of the kids admitted. High school was rough. Most of the students in Clement Park were still speaking confessionally, and everyone had a brutal experience to share. The "bullying" idea began to pepper motive stories. The concept touched a national nerve, and soon the anti-bullying movement took on a force of its own. Everyone who had been to high school understood what a horrible problem it could be. Many believed that addressing it might be the one good thing to come out of the tragedy. All the talk of bullying and alienation provided an easy motive. Forty-eight hours after the massacre, USA Today pulled the threads together in a stunning cover story that fused the myths of jock-hunting, bully-revenge, and the TCM. "Students are beginning to describe how a long-simmering rivalry between the sullen members of their clique [the TCM] and the school's athletes escalated and ultimately exploded in this week's deadly violence," it said. It described tension the previous spring, including daily fistfights. The details were accurate, the conclusions wrong. Most of the media followed. It was accepted as fact."

"Definitions of bullying at work further emphasize two main features: repeated and enduring aggressive behaviours that are intended to be hostile and/or perceived as hostile by the recipient (Einarsen and Skogstad, 1996; Leymann, 1990b; Zapf et al., 1996). In other words, bullying is normally not about single and isolated events, but rather about behaviours that are repeatedly and persistently directed towards one or more employees. Leymann (1990b, 1996) suggested that to be called 'mobbing' or bullying, such events should occur at least once a week, which characterises bullying as a severe form of social stress. In many cases this criterion is difficult to apply because not all bullying behaviors are strictly episodic in nature. For example, a rumour can circulate that may be harmful or even threaten to destroy the victim's career or reputation. However, it does not have to be repeated every week. In cases we have been made aware of, victims had to work in basement rooms without windows and telephone. Here, bullying consists of a permanent state rather than a series of events. Hence, the main criterion is that the behaviours or their consequences are repeated on a regular as opposed to an occasional basis."

"There's no evidence that bullying led to murder, but considerable evidence it was a problem at Columbine High. After the tragedy, Mr. D took a lot of flak for bullying, particularly since he insisted he was unaware it had gone on. "I'm telling you, as long as I've been an administrator here, if I'm aware of a situation, then I deal with that situation," he said. "And I believe our teachers, and I believe our coaches. I turned my own son in. I believe that strongly in rules." That may have been part of his downfall. Mr. D did believe strongly in the rules. He held his staff to the same standard, and seemed to believe they would meet it. His unusual rapport with the kids also created a blind spot. It was all smiles when Mr. D strode down the corridor. They sincerely warmed at the sight of him, and sought to please him as well,. Sometimes he mistook that joy for pervasive bliss in his high school. Personal affinities also obscured the problem. Mr. D knew he was drawn to sports. He worked hard to offset that by attending debate tournaments, drama tryouts, and art shows. He conferred regularly with the student senate. But those were all success stories. Mr. D balanced athletics and academics better than overachievers and unders. "I don't think he had a preference on purpose," a pierced-out girl in a buzz cut and red tartan boots said. "He's got a lot of school spirit, and I think he aims it in the direction he's most comfortable with, like school sports and student congress." She saw DeAngelis as a sincere man, making a tremendous effort to interact with students, unaware that his natural inclination toward happy, energetic students created a blind spot for the outsiders. "My Goth friends hated the school," she said."

"Eric and Dylan have continued to remain cult heroes to some. Shortly after a programmer used home RPG-maker software to build a video game called Super Columbine Massacre RPG, a visit to the discussion forum on his website revealed just how many kids- kids whose ages were still in the single digits when Columbine happened- idolize the two killers. These kids constantly say things like, "Eric and Dylan struck a blow for bullied kids everywhere." They conveniently leave out the fact that Eric and Dylan didn't kill bullies, but instead shot innocent kids like Rachel Scott. We mentioned kids like these in the first edition of this book, and four years later, their numbers seemed to hold strong. For a time, we would hold online talks with these kids, trying to make them understand. But after a while, you start to spot the ones who have no interest in really listening. Some people will believe what they want to believe, on matter how much evidence you throw at them. If the legend sounds more interesting than reality, the legend often wins."

"Take The Power Out Of Bullying"

"When it comes to Columbine, some solutions are more obvious than others. We have to crack down on all forms of bullying. Obviously, this means the kids on the playground who beat up the outcasts, or the high schoolers who mock and harass the kids wearing black and keeping to themselves. But we also have to look at teachers. Teachers who only like the "good kids" and turn their backs on the rest are causing untold pain and anger in those forgotten students. If students are given up on early, then they learn to hate the system and can no longer be rescued by it. We have to reevaluate what we as a society are doing to our children. They, and not our careers or our personal lives, must be our priority. When people choose to become parents, they must make those children their primary focus- not just say it, but live it. Our kids need that kind of guidance in today's world."

"Drill sergeants known how to deal with bullies... "Want to stop a bully? Man the fuck up and punch that motherfucker in the throat! Problem solved.""

"Plenty of people in Littleton criticized the media for being too evasive and violating their privacy. But to be honest, I understood their predicament. They were good people who didn't want to be there any more than we did, but they had a job to do. There were some isolated examples of assholes, sure, but most of the people I met in the media were pretty cool to me. And it was their work that kept information coming out. If it had been up to the police and the school, any reports of bullying would have been suppressed, and the police would have kept quiet about our family's report on the web pages. The questions about police response would have been pushed aside. It was the media who fought to keep that from happening."

"Bullying bosses, studies find, differ in significant ways from the Blutos of childhood. In the schoolyard, particularly among elementary school boys, bullies tend to pick on smaller or weaker children, often to assert control in an uncertain social environment in which they feel uncomfortable. But adult bullies in positions of power are already dominant, and they are just as likely to pick on a strong subordinate as a weak one, said Dr. Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute, an advocacy group based in Bellingham, Wash. Women, Dr. Namie said, are at least as likely as men to be the aggressors, and they are more likely to be targets. In leadership positions that require the exercise of sheer violent will- on the football field or the battlefield- this approach can be successful: consider Vince Lombardy or George Patton. But in an office or on a factory floor, different rules apply, and bullying usually has more to do with the boss's desires than with the employee's needs."

"Parents who are intimidated by texting and social-networking sites view cyberbullying as a terrifying new form of bullying, but the truth is that cyberbullying is just a continuation of existing adolescent behavior, played out in a new arena. Approximately 20-25 percent of kids have been bullied online, and this is a conservative estimate. Bullies and victims can trade places at the click of a mouse, and things move so fast online that it is difficult to process information rationally before acting. For unfortunate kids who find themselves on the receiving end of massive cyberbullying attacks, the relentless barrage of cruelty can create a sensation of sinking into a black hole of pain."

"I told them [the press] the truth; I didn't censor myself. Other kids were sugarcoating Columbine, making it sound like this peaceful, tranquil land of flowers and honey that Eric and Dylan had just walked into and shattered. "Oh, sure, there were jocks and everything," they'd say. "But it was never that bad. We just can't understand how this happened in a school like ours." If people wanted to know what Columbine was like, I'd tell them. I'd tell them about the bullies who shoved the kids they didn't like into lockers, or called them "faggot" every time they walked past. I'd tell them about the jocks who picked relentlessly on anyone they considered to be below them. The teachers who turned a blind eye to the brutalization of their pupils, because those pupils weren't the favorites. I told them about the way those who were "different" were crushed, and fights happened so regularly outside school that no one paid attention. I told what it was like to live in constant fear of other kids who'd gone out of control, knowing full well that the teachers would turn a blind eye. After all, those kids were their favorites. We were the troublemakers. "Eric and Dylan are the ones responsible for creating this tragedy," I told them. "However, Columbine is responsible for creating Eric and Dylan.""

"Burns and fires account for an estimated 3,500 child and adult deaths annually, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. The incident has left Dominick’s family devastated and searching for answers. Deegan said her brother could barely eat, sleep or talk. Family members have shared photos of Dominick completely bandaged up, surrounded by stuffed animals and Iron Man and Spider-Man dolls in his hospital bed. Rua said his whole body is swollen with blisters and that “his face is about twice the size it normally is.”A GoFundMe started by Deegan to help pay for Dominick’s hospital bills has raised more than $76,000 as of Wednesday afternoon. Aaron Krankall, Dominick’s father, told WTIC that they were grateful for the community support in the days since Dominick was burned. “I’m telling Dominick, all these people love you and care about you,” the father said, adding that people have offered to move the family out of the home and away from the alleged bully. “Everyone’s really just helping. The whole community is coming together.” But the boy’s family is left wondering when Dominick, who they described in the online fundraiser as a happy-go-lucky boy who befriended everyone, will be able to ride his bike, play basketball or go fishing again. “He’s such a tough little cookie,” Deegan wrote on GoFundMe. “The bravest 6 year old i’ve ever known.”"

"Jack was made a sergeant, but he shouted at the men so much and bullied them so often, in an effort to convince them of an authority he did not possess, that he was replaced. Or rather, he resigned. "Keep your lousy sergeancy," he said. "I don't want it anyhow.""

"Dominick’s family wrote in an online fundraiser that the 8-year-old boy’s mother “thinks he is innocent.” But Maria Rua, Dominick’s mother, told WTNH that her son’s alleged bully “purposefully threw a gasoline-saturated ball that they lit on fire at my son’s face.” “They threw it at Dominick and left him outside alone to die,” she said. The 6-year-old is being treated at Bridgeport Hospital and is expected to recover, Rua said to local media. John Cappiello, a hospital spokesman, told The Post that Dominick is in fair condition as of Wednesday morning. “Fair is better than critical and better than serious, so we’re trying to do our best for him,” Cappiello said. “It’s a terrible thing.” The 6-year-old’s family say Dominick has been bullied by the 8-year-old for the past year. Deegan alleged to WNBC that the 8-year-old previously sent Dominick to the hospital with a concussion after her younger brother was pushed into a wall and fell to the floor about two months ago. Dominick was playing at their Louisiana Avenue home in Bridgeport on Sunday afternoon when he was called over by the 8-year-old. Dominick’s family alleged to local media that the 8-year-old neighbor gained access to a shed on the property, which is how he was able to get a hold of gasoline and lighters. Then, Deegan said to WNBC, the 8-year-old lit the gasoline-soaked tennis ball and “just chucked it right at my brother’s face — and then ran away from him and watched him burn.” Bridgeport authorities responded to a report of a child burned shortly after 3:45 p.m., according to the police report. Dominick was transported to the burn unit of Bridgeport Hospital, police said."

"Bullying at work is not only about aggressive behavior. The covert nature of workplace bullying behavior can destroy a target’s health, ability to work, emotional well-being, self-worth, and financial condition. This research is one of the first studies on workplace bullying in the United States. Workplace bullies have a serious negative impact upon the organizations for which they work (Namie & Namie, 2003; Prentice, 2005). Once the bullying atmosphere begins to pervade an organization, morale is destroyed and productivity is affected. The workplace often includes distorted personality types that seem to have just one purpose: to find somebody else to attack, to belittle, to criticize, and to destroy (Prentice). Bully behavior, whether committed by men 94 or women, should be further examined due to the long-term costs for both employees and the organizations for which they work. Many leaders and managers either fail to recognize the problem or are themselves the problem. Early studies on bullying focused on the behavior of the bully, the target, or the bully-target pairing (Olweus, 1999). Recent approaches have adopted an ecological perspective that examines the broader context in which bullying can occur and especially the many interrelated systems of the environment, such as the workplace and its leadership (Namie, 2003). This study presents methods of aggression employed by bullies that leaders must recognize and cease."

"Imagine being unable to escape as the bully relentlessly pursues them online in a form accessible 24/7. Imagine how bleak that must be; imagine how lonely it must be."

"The U.S. is supposed to be different, but Trump sees the world as an extension of himself — a place where bullies gain wealth and power by mistreating others and controlling them with fear."

"Questions at home and school should be decided in the light of the future. It is a process of toughening, but not the sort of false physical thing that we have called toughening. Our boys and girls ought to know that the bully type, the false "tough," has been the first to break down under the actual fire of battle. The quiet, the calm, the determined have made the best soldiers. Why? Obviously the bully is insecure in himself- he blusters to muster his own courage. Children ought to know that. They ought to be taught to retort to the bully, "You're a coward or you wouldn't make such a noise about being brave. The really brave man simply acts brave- he doesn't have to talk about it.""

"Dominick Krankall was playing at his Connecticut home when the boy who lived below him called out his name. Moments after 6-year-old Dominick went to go meet the 8-year-old neighbor who had bullied him on Sunday, Krankall’s family said, Dominick shrieked in horror when the 8-year-old allegedly launched a tennis ball at his face that was soaked in gasoline and lit on fire. “As soon as he walked down the stairs, the bully called his name and lured him over around the corner,” Dominick’s sister, Kayla Deegan, told WNBC in New York City, “and in a matter of seconds he came back around the corner screaming, saying, ‘Mommy, they lit me on fire! They lit me on fire!’” The attack left Dominick with second- and third-degree burns on his face and legs, and most of the boy’s body is swollen and bandaged. Authorities in Bridgeport, Conn., noted in a police report how preliminary findings show that “up to four unattended children were seen playing with gasoline and lighting objects on fire.” “The incident is currently still under investigation as to the exact cause of the burn injuries by the Bridgeport Police, Bridgeport Fire and State Fire Investigation Teams,” police wrote in the report. No charges have been handed down as of early Wednesday. Scott Appleby, the director of emergency management for Bridgeport, told The Washington Post that no other details were immediately available to be shared to the public. Neither the 8-year-old nor his family have been publicly identified."

"There are no two ways about it. Trump is a bully. By intimidating others, he believes he can get what he wants, not what is fair. It's a philosophy he brags about. He regales staff with stories about filing meritless claims in court against other companies in order to coerce them to back down or get a better deal. That's how you get them to do what you want. During the 2016 campaign, journalist Bob Woodward asked Trump about President Obama's view that "real power means you can get what you want without exerting violence." In his response, Trump made a revealing confession: "Real power is through respect. Real power is, I don't even want to use the word, fear." President Trump shows no mercy. Political opponents are wartime opponents, and there should be no clemency. Trump remains fixated ion his previous presidential rival years into his tenure, continuously disparaging and demeaning her. It might be a different situation if he expected to face off again with Hillary Clinton, yet she appears to be finished with public office. Don't get me wrong. No one in the Trump White House is a fan of Hillary Clinton, but we started to find the president's chronic animosity toward her to be a little weird. He has tweeted about Clinton hundreds of times since taking office. He has even flirted with using the powers of his office to investigate and prosecute her... Electoral defeat is not enough; Donald Trump wants total defeat of his opponents."

"The president's obvious admiration for Vladimir Putin ("a great guy," "terrific person") still continues to puzzle us, including those on the team who shrug off his outlandish behavior. Where did the Putin hero worship come from? It's almost as if Trump is the scrawny kid trying to suck up to the bully on the playground. Commentators have speculated, without any evidence, that Moscow must "have something" on the president. I wish I could say. All I know is that whatever drives his love for Putin, it's terrible for the United States because Vladimir Lenin is not on our side and no US president should be building him up. We need a comprehensive strategy to counter the Russians, not court them. But Trump is living on another planet, one where he and Putin are companions and where Russia wants to help America be successful. As a result, US officials fear they're "on their own" in fighting back against Moscow. They're right. They are. If an agency wants to respond to Russia's anti-US behavior around the world, they shouldn't plan on steady air cover from the president. In fact, officials know they risk Trump's ire if the subject comes up in public interviews or congressional testimony. "I don't care," one fellow senior leader snapped when reminded by his staff that he needed to watch his words in Senate meetings. "He can fire me if he wants. I'm going to tell the truth. The Russians are not our friends.""

"The thing that makes it so hard to deal with these types of bullies is that they're often hard to recognize, and hard for bystanders to stand up to. People like them. Teachers are amused by them. Coaches value them. Their social skills enable them to sweet-talk and appear innocent to adults, and their peers are terrified of standing up to them when they witness bullying behaviors because they could easily become the next targets. Whether they admit it or not, nearly all kids want to be popular. They want to have friends on the highest rung of the social ladder. They'll rarely contradict or confront a popular kid who's doing something wrong because that would make them "uncool" and likely to lose social status themselves. Because of this, the popular bullies learn that they can get away with anything, and their empathy declines. They feel more and more powerful, and feel contempt for the less powerful kids. They're likely to repeat this pattern throughout life in their workplaces, towns, and families- teaching their kids how to climb the social ladder so they can annihilate the "worthless" kids below them, too. That is part of the reason we have to deal with these issues early when they occur, because the longer kids get away with bullying, the less their empathy kicks in to stop these situations."

"In addition to physical bullying, teasing that degraded the victim's masculinity was also common. Bullying experts have suggested that in recent decades, as teachers have become more aware of the importance of cracking down on physical bullying, teasing with the explicit intention of lowering the victim's self-worth is on the rise, and it has even been given a name: shaming. While the purpose of physical bullying is to control the victim (in the classic case, such as to make him turn over his lunch money), the purpose of shaming is to make the victim feel worse about himself."

"In high school, they don't call it cyber bullying at all. They call it digital drama, they call it life. They don't want to call it bullying because they think it makes them look weak."

"Imagine seeing an attractive girl in the hallway who's in one of your classes, but who you've never really had the chance to talk with. Somehow, you get into a conversation with her. She seems nice, and you like her, and she's laughing and you're starting to get hopeful. Then a couple of football players come around the corner and say, "Hey, what the hell are you talking to her for, faggot? Do you actually think you have a chance with her?" And then they pick you up and push you into a locker, and you look like a pathetic weakling in front of the girl you were trying so hard to impress. Such things were commonplace at Columbine. If a guy was acting in the Columbine drama program, he was immediately labeled a "drama fag." Not only was he not playing sports- which was what all normal guys were supposed to do at Columbine- but he was into that fine arts crap! The bullies found whatever weakness they could and went after it. I was a wuss because I wasn't in sports. I was gay because I liked theatre. Then when I was in debate, it was like, "Ooh, you must be smart, huh huh huh." Apparently, they thought calling someone "smart" was an insult."

"How exactly does the pain of severe bullying affect the most vulnerable kids? Studies investigating the neuroscience of bullying have found that bullying victims experience anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, difficulty concentrating, headaches, and stomach pain as a result of being bullied. Studies of early social deprivation show that human beings are hardwired to belong, and nowhere is this more evident than in kids jockeying for social position. And the old adage- sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me? Not true. Neuroimaging studies have shown that parts of the cortical brain network are also activated when a person is socially excluded. This goes not just for adults but for children as well. The brain of a child as young as thirteen has been shown to react to pain as if the child were being physically injured. Taunting and bullying hurts, and we have the brain scans to prove it. Even worse, repeatedly being victimized by peers- which is the very nature of bullying, the repetitiveness of it- actually alters brain functioning, which increases the victim's sensitivity to future attacks, even causing the person to perceive an ambiguous situation as threatening. Years after the bullying has ceased, victims are left picking up the wreckage."

"Branch Davidians are a modern religious sect that claims to be an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. The church renounced any connection with the sect in the 1930s."

"The Heaven's Gate sect received national attention in the spring of 1997, when its thirty-nine members committed suicide in Southern California."

"Some of these terms, including "cult" and "sect," have long traditions of use, stretching back to the centuries when Latin was the official language of scholars. But the meanings of words often change over time; and terms that once were neutral or simply descriptive sometimes take on harshly negative implications and potentially lose their original usefulness, including the two just mentioned. Other terms have been coined more recently to circumvent the stereotypes associated with older categories. Among this newer terminology are "outsider groups" and "New Religious Movements." Sometimes the newer nomenclature is useful despite certain limitations. "Marginal religious communities," for example, is a positional designation — not a qualitative judgment — implying a location on the margin or edge of mainstream religious groups. When using these terms, it is important to recognize that they are often loaded with powerful assumptions and implications."

"Peoples Temple and the Branch Davidians both approximated the 'apocalyptic sect' as an ideal type. In such sects the end of the world is taken as a central tenet."

"The Peoples Temple movement began in the 1950s as an independent Pentecostal congregation of white and black working-class families … Some argue it was initially a Christian sect that then became a new religious movement."

"Despite being a relatively new organization, the Church of Scientology already has had to denounce splinter groups, including sects that claim to practice Dianetics complete with E-Meters independent of the Church."

"I remembered the devotion of those belonging to the Manson 'Family' or the 'People's Temple' of Jim Jones or the Branch Davidian Sect or the 'Heaven's Gate' sect of Marshall Applewhite It wasn't how much the 'Heaven's Gate' believers believed that there was a spaceship hiding behind the Hale-Bopp comet, waiting to take them to paradise; only the actual existence of such a spaceship really mattered."

"Observers of Jim Jones' Peoples Temple noted that Jones' socialist sect did not lose non-profit status or receive reams of negative publicity until the massacre at Guyana occurred."

"As with its disciplinary practices and its round of daily life, the community of goods in the Peoples Temple at Jonestown emphasizes its similarities to otherworldly sects—both the contemporary ones labeled 'cults' by their detractors, and historical examples which are often revered in retrospect by contemporary religious culture."

"There is an interesting class difference to be found among these apocalyptic sects. The victims at Waco were predominantly from the lower class, as was true of Jonestown. The Heaven's Gate believers, on the other hand, were on the whole from the middle class."

"Every person who is not a fellow member, and every social, religious and political institution that lies outside the sect's domain, is portrayed as a representative of Satan's world. In our research, we found that Moonies and members of many Christian sects with similar religious and political doctrines often focus on such beliefs to the exclusion of all other thought."

"Now I see there is a people risen that I cannot win with gifts or honours, offices or places; but all other sects and people I can."

"The Indiana Peoples Temple was essentially a sect, which was joined by new religious movement members in California, which then recruited black church members as it focused its ministry on the residents of urban California."

"Like Peoples Temple, the Branch Davidians approximated the 'apocalyptic sect' as an ideal type."

"The Branch Davidians were a separatist, communal sect of the Seventh Day Adventists that had occupied several buildings and some acreage outside of Waco,Texas. David Koresh, the sect's leader, preached an apocalyptic message of a showdown with government forces."