[3][4][5] Lofland published his findings in 1964 as a doctoral thesis entitled: "The World Savers: A Field Study of Cult Processes," and in 1966 in book form by Prentice-Hall.
[7][8] James Richardson writes in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Society that after the publication of Lofland's work, "The term doomsday cult has become a part of everyday parlance, used by the media to refer to apocalyptic religious groups.
"[9][10] A psychological research study by Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter found that people turned to a cataclysmic world view after they had repeatedly failed to find meaning in mainstream movements.
"[23] In Mystics and Messiahs, Jenkins writes that as a result of events between 1993 and 1997 including the Waco Siege involving the Branch Davidians, violence involving the Order of the Solar Temple, Aum Shinrikyo's sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, and the Heaven's Gate incident, "Reporting on so-called doomsday cults became a mainstay of the media, just as satanic cults had been a decade before."
[1] In Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld, the authors also make a comparison to organized crime, writing that Aum Shinrikyo "...often resembled a profit-hungry racketeering gang more than a fanatic doomsday cult.
"[24] In James R. Lewis' The Order of the Solar Temple, Jean-François Mayer writes that the media made use of the term doomsday cult to characterize the movement, though former members and outsiders did not know what kind of event would occur.
[25] Some see the use of the term itself as a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the characterization of being called a doomsday cult may actually affect the outcome of violent events related to the group.
[31] On September 5, 2002, Arnaud Mussy told his followers based in Nantes, France to look forward to voyagers from Venus who would collect them before the end of the world on October 24, 2002.
[31] In Apocalypse Observed, authors Hall and Schuyler discuss the effect the media had on the events surrounding the Order of the Solar Temple group.