Stage 4

ENCOUNTER

Advocate

• Secular attributes
• Theory of conversion
• Inducements to conversion

Advocate’s strategy

• Strategic style (Diffuse, Concentrated)
• Modes of contact (Public/private, Personal/impersonal)

Benefits of conversion

• Systems of meaning
• Emotional gratification
• Techniques for living
• Leadership
• Power
• Advocate and Convert
• Initial response
• Resistance
• Diffusion and innovation
• Differential motivation and experiences

Stage 3

QUEST

Response style

• Active
• Passive

Structural availability

• Emotional
• Intellectual
• Religious

Motivational structures

• Experience pleasure and avoid pain
• Conceptual system
• Enhance self-esteem
• Establish and maintain relationships
• Power
• Transcendence

Stage 2

CRISIS

Nature of crisis

• Intensity
• Duration
• Scope
• Source: internal/external

Catalysts for conversion

• Mystical experiences
• Near-death experiences
• Illness and healing
• Is that all there is
• Desire for transcendence
• Altered states of consciousness
• Protean selfhood
• Pathology
• Apostasy
• Externally stimulated crises

Stage 1

CONTEXT

Macrocontext

• Systems of access and control

Microcontext

• Degree of integration and conflict

Contours of context

• Culture
• Social
• Personal
• Religious (Valence of dimension)

Contextual influences

• Resistance and rejection
• Enclaves
• Paths of conversion
• Congruence
• Types of conversion (Tradition transition, Institutional transition, Affiliation, Intensification, Apostasy)
• Motifs of conversion (Intellectual, Mystical, Experimental, Affectional, Revivalism, Coercive)