ABSTRACT
This chapter describes what is meant by religious fundamentalism and the kinds of unconscious motivations that make some individuals cling to exaggerated religiosity. It also focuses on religious fundamentalism as a shared group process as it occurs in religious cults. There are fundamentalist religious groups within almost every faith tradition: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Confucianism. Since 11 September 2001, however, at least in the United States and the so-called Western world, the label "fundamentalism" has evolved as a pejorative word mainly associated with Islam. An encapsulated extreme fundamentalist religious movement starts to become generalized when the majority of "bystanders" within the large group, rather than having and maintaining negative feelings and fear about the movement, begin to support it, directly or indirectly. There are numerous causes that spread the influence of an encapsulated extreme fundamentalist religious organization.
