Cults

In this installment of the History Channel's History's Mysteries series, erstwhile scud stud Arthur Kent canvasses famous cults in history, including the cults of Dionysus and Isis, the early Christians, the Gnostics, the Shakers, the Mormons, Jim Jones' People's Temple and, of course, Aleister Crowley and Anton La Vey. While the information presented is clear, some of it may already be familiar to dedicated viewers of A&E and the History Channel (in the La Vey segment, for instance, "rare footage" is touted, but looks darn similar to clips in other A&E video treatments of the campy Black Mass master). Experts in suits make the observation that many mainstream religions began as cults, an idea that Dr. Stephen O'Leary of the University of Southern California crystallizes via an imagined conversation between two "upper-middle class Roman citizens" regarding the weird cult in which one of their children is involved--members meet at all hours, have crazy rituals and show no respect for the then-mainstream Roman gods. "To those people, Christianity was an upstart religious cult." And that's pretty much the philosophical underpinning of this feature: being designated as a cult can be a somewhat relative thing. Good serious comparative religion in bite-sized savory dollops, this is recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (M. Tribby)