ng preparation for what
awaits us hereafter is the brave conduct of life under those laws and
conditions which are the revelation of the whole solid experience of our
race. Beyond this it is difficult to go and beyond this it is not
necessary to go.

XI

MINOR CULTS: THE MEANING OF THE CULTS FOR THE CHURCH

_Border-land Cults_

The cults which we have so far considered are the outstanding forms of
modern free religious movements, but they do not begin to exhaust the
subject matter. Even the outstanding cults have their own border-lands.
New Thought is particularly rich in variants and there are in all
American cities sporadic, distantly related and always shifting
movements--groups which gather about this or that leader, maintain
themselves for a little and then dissolve, to be recreated around other
centers with perhaps a change of personnel. The Masonic Temple in
Chicago is said to be occupied on Sundays all day long by larger or
smaller groups which may be societies for ethical culture or with some
social program or other, or for the study of Oriental religions. One
would need to attend them all and saturate himself far more deeply than
is possible for any single investigator in their creeds or their
contentions to appraise them justly. Their real significance is neither
in their organization, for they have little organization, nor in their
creed, but in their temper. They represent reaction, restlessness and
the spiritual confusion of the time. They can be explained--in part at
least--in terms of that social deracination to which reference has
already been made. They represent also an excess of individualism in the
region of religion and its border-lands.

An examination of the church advertisement pages in the newspapers of
New York, Detroit, Chicago or San Francisco reveals their extent, their
variety and their ingenuity in finding names for themselves. On Sunday,
February 25th, the Detroit papers carried advertisements of Vedanta,
Spiritist and Spiritualist groups (the Spiritist group calls itself "The
Spirit Temple of Light and Truth"), The Ultimate Thought Society, The
First Universal Spiritual Church, The Church of Psychic Research, The
Philosophical Church of Natural Law, Unity Center, The Culture of
Isolan, Theosophy, Divine Science Center, and Lectures on Divine
Metaphysics. Their leaders advertise such themes as: The Opulent
Consciousness, The Law of Non-Attachment, Psychic Senses and
Spirit