Hi Narkissos - As ever, I find your post very interesting also. Thanks for your reply.
With you, I agree that any approach to the question of "sects" and/or "cults" should be conducted via a variety of approaches, that way, the various "data" supplied could serve only to increase awareness and provide insights. The psychological/archetypal approach proposed by Campbell should most certainly be "complemented" [enhanced] by the methodology of other academic/research disciplines. One could study a group with an eye toward its diachronic development [history] or its synchronic relations with society at large. In fact, the issue is a very broad one and calls for study using different approaches.
I also agree with your idea that modern Western societies are "Janus-faced" in their theoretical "embrace" and encouragement of diversity; whereas, in fact, they manage to impose, in practice, as much uniformity and conformity as they can. What eludes me [and perhaps it is here that you could assist me] is exactly who carries out these "policies of conformity." Are these decisions conscious ones on the part of a specific group of individuals? Is it politicians who are responsible? Or the so-called "titans" of industry/commerce? The military? The media? A combination of the afore-mentioned? After all, the term modern Western democracies, though commonly used, is a broad one. To appropriate a metaphor, there are "many countries and societies under that tent." There are many countries that can be put in this category. Each country has its own unique and distinct history and concerns.
Or, rather, is this phenomena a more diffuse one? To use the German phrase, is it a zeitgeist, a "spirit of the times"?
By the way, Narkissos, I seem to remember that you mention the idea of "play" or "man playing a given role." I cannot remember the specific thread, but it seems to me that you mention this notion of "play" or "role playing." Perhaps it was a thread on Nietzsche. In any case, there is a very interesting quote in Campbell's Myths To Live By. In the following passage, Campbell quotes a book by J. Huizinga, entitled Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture, and published by Routledge in 1949. The following passage is from the chapter, "The Inspiration of Oriental Art" - "There is a curious, extremely nteresting term in Japanese that refers to a very special manner of polite, aristocratic speech known as 'play language,' asobase kotoba, whereby, instead of saying to a person, for example, 'I see that you have come to Tokyo,' one would express the observation by saying, 'I see that you are playing at being in Tokyo' - the idea being that the person addressed is in such control of his life and his powers that for him everything is a play, a game. He is able to enter into life as one would enter into a game, freely and at ease. And this idea is carried even so far that instead of saying to a person, 'I hear that your father has died,' you would say, rather, 'I hear that your father has played at dying.'
And now, I submit that this is truly a noble, really glorious way to approach life. What has to be done is attacked with such a will that in the performance one is literally 'in play.' That is the attitude designated by Nietzsche in Amor fati, love of one's fate.It is what the old Roman Seneca referred to iin his often quoted saying: Ducentvolentem fata, nolentemtrahunt: 'The Fates lead him who will; him who won't, they drag."