I started working on this article during the pandemic lockdown.
Abstract
Previous research has shown that religious organizations are more
similar to terror or violent extremist organizations than they are
dissimilar (Banisadr, 2009; Centner, 2003; Levine, 1999). Individuals
who join both usually have similar characteristics. Because
contemporary researchers have focused more on terror groups than on
cults, the archival knowledge from cult survivors and years of cult
research has not been adequately illuminated as a guide for terror
studies. The current literature review attempts to remedy this gap. Using
the PRISMA methodology (Moher et al., 2009), I examine the literature
of religious-cult recruitment, terror-organization recruitment, and
radicalization, to illuminate the multiple confluences between them. Just
as cults and terror organizations are similar in many other aspects, they
also tend to follow similar recruitment patterns. Understanding cult
recruitment can be useful to terror researchers.