The Ghost Cults

87:7.1The cult type of so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion per­sisted be­cause it pro­vided a sym­bol­ism for the preser­va­tion and stim­u­la­tion of moral sen­ti­ments and re­li­gious loy­al­ties. The cult grew out of the tra­di­tions of “old fam­i­lies” and was per­pet­u­ated as an es­tab­lished in­sti­tu­tion; all fam­i­lies have a cult of some sort. Ev­ery in­spir­ing ideal grasps for some per­pet­u­at­ing sym­bol­ism—seeks some tech­nique for cul­tural man­i­fes­ta­tion which will in­sure sur­vival and aug­ment re­al­iza­tion—and the cult achieves this end by fos­ter­ing and grat­i­fy­ing emo­tion.

87:7.2From the dawn of civ­i­liza­tion ev­ery ap­peal­ing move­ment in so­cial cul­ture or re­li­gious ad­vance­ment has de­vel­oped a rit­ual, a sym­bolic cer­e­mo­nial. The more this rit­ual has been an un­con­scious growth, the stronger it has gripped its devo­tees. The cult pre­served sen­ti­ment and sat­is­fied emo­tion, but it has al­ways been the great­est ob­sta­cle to so­cial re­con­struc­tion and spir­i­tual prog­ress.

87:7.3Not­with­stand­ing that the cult has al­ways re­tarded so­cial prog­ress, it is re­gret­table that so many mod­ern be­liev­ers in moral stan­dards and spir­i­tual ide­als have no ad­e­quate sym­bol­ism—no cult of mu­tual sup­port—noth­ing to be­long to. But a re­li­gious cult can­not be man­u­fac­tured; it must grow. And those of no two groups will be iden­ti­cal un­less their rit­u­als are ar­bi­trar­ily stan­dard­ized by au­thor­ity.

87:7.4The early Chris­tian cult was the most ef­fec­tive, ap­peal­ing, and en­dur­ing of any rit­ual ever con­ceived or de­vised, but much of its value has been de­stroyed in a sci­en­tific age by the de­struc­tion of so many of its orig­i­nal un­der­ly­ing tenets. The Chris­tian cult has been de­vi­tal­ized by the loss of many fun­da­men­tal ideas.

87:7.5In the past, truth has grown rapidly and ex­panded freely when the cult has been elas­tic, the sym­bol­ism ex­pan­sile. Abun­dant truth and an ad­justable cult have fa­vored ra­pid­ity of so­cial pro­gres­sion. A mean­ing­less cult vi­ti­ates re­li­gion when it at­tempts to sup­plant phi­los­o­phy and to en­slave rea­son; a gen­uine cult grows.

87:7.6Re­gard­less of the draw­backs and hand­i­caps, ev­ery new rev­e­la­tion of truth has given rise to a new cult, and even the re­state­ment of the re­li­gion of Je­sus must de­velop a new and ap­pro­pri­ate sym­bol­ism. Mod­ern man must find some ad­e­quate sym­bol­ism for his new and ex­pand­ing ideas, ide­als, and loy­al­ties. This en­hanced sym­bol must arise out of re­li­gious liv­ing, spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. And this higher sym­bol­ism of a higher civ­i­liza­tion must be pred­i­cated on the con­cept of the Fa­ther­hood of God and be preg­nant with the mighty ideal of the broth­er­hood of man.

87:7.7The old cults were too ego­cen­tric; the new must be the out­growth of ap­plied love. The new cult must, like the old, fos­ter sen­ti­ment, sat­isfy emo­tion, and pro­mote loy­alty; but it must do more: It must fa­cil­i­tate spir­i­tual prog­ress, en­hance cos­mic mean­ings, aug­ment moral val­ues, en­cour­age so­cial de­vel­op­ment, and stim­u­late a high type of per­sonal re­li­gious liv­ing. The new cult must pro­vide su­preme goals of liv­ing which are both tem­po­ral and eter­nal—so­cial and spir­i­tual.

87:7.8No cult can en­dure and con­tribute to the prog­ress of so­cial civ­i­liza­tion and in­di­vid­ual spir­i­tual at­tain­ment un­less it is based on the bi­o­logic, so­ci­o­logic, and re­li­gious sig­nif­i­cance of the home. A sur­viv­ing cult must sym­bol­ize that which is per­ma­nent in the pres­ence of un­ceas­ing change; it must glo­rify that which uni­fies the stream of ever-chang­ing so­cial meta­mor­pho­sis. It must rec­og­nize true mean­ings, ex­alt beau­ti­ful re­la­tions, and glo­rify the good val­ues of real no­bil­ity.

87:7.9But the great dif­fi­culty of find­ing a new and sat­is­fy­ing sym­bol­ism is be­cause mod­ern men, as a group, ad­here to the sci­en­tific at­ti­tude, es­chew su­per­sti­tion, and ab­hor ig­no­rance, while as in­di­vid­u­als they all crave mys­tery and ven­er­ate the un­known. No cult can sur­vive un­less it em­bod­ies some mas­ter­ful mys­tery and con­ceals some worth­ful unattain­able. Again, the new sym­bol­ism must not only be sig­nif­i­cant for the group but also mean­ing­ful to the in­di­vid­ual. The forms of any ser­vice­able sym­bol­ism must be those which the in­di­vid­ual can carry out on his own ini­tia­tive, and which he can also en­joy with his fel­lows. If the new cult could only be dy­namic in­stead of static, it might re­ally con­tribute some­thing worth while to the prog­ress of man­kind, both tem­po­ral and spir­i­tual.

87:7.10But a cult—a sym­bol­ism of rit­u­als, slo­gans, or goals—will not func­tion if it is too com­plex. And there must be the de­mand for de­vo­tion, the re­sponse of loy­alty. Ev­ery ef­fec­tive re­li­gion unerringly de­vel­ops a wor­thy sym­bol­ism, and its devo­tees would do well to pre­vent the crys­tal­liza­tion of such a rit­ual into cramp­ing, de­form­ing, and sti­fling stereo­typed cer­e­mo­ni­als which can only hand­i­cap and re­tard all so­cial, moral, and spir­i­tual prog­ress. No cult can sur­vive if it re­tards moral growth and fails to fos­ter spir­i­tual prog­ress. The cult is the skele­tal struc­ture around which grows the liv­ing and dy­namic body of per­sonal spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence—true re­li­gion.

87:7.11[Pre­sented by a Bril­liant Evening Star of Neb­a­don.]