The Cult Experience: Responding to the New Religious Pluralism

by J. Gordon Melton, Robert L. Moore

Surveys the major religious cults, examines their influence on American society, and discusses deprogramming and the movement against cults

180 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

John Gordon Melton is an American religious scholar who was the founding director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and is currently a research specialist in religion and New Religious Movements with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion.

His areas of research include major religious traditions, new religions and alternative religions, Occultism and Parapsychology, New Age, and vampirology.

Melton has been criticized by several scholars for what they see as conflicts of interest in his reporting of some of the groups he studies.