When is a Group a Cult?

What is a Cult?

Cults come in many forms including religious, financial, and political.  Cults exploit their members by convincing them they are doing the right thing by belonging to the cult while taking advantage of them sexually, emotionally, and/or financially.

Groups that have many of the following features are classified as cults.  

• Authoritarian
• Unquestionable doctrine
• No meaningful financial disclosure
• Fear of the outside world
• Leaving the group is bad
• Exploitation of members
• Followers feel they can never be "good enough".
• Leader is always right.
• Leader has exclusive access to truth

Recruiting Cult Members

A person's who becomes part of a cult group has their identity slowly linked to the cult.  Indoctrination is a slow and friendly process.  There are no obvious threats to those being recruited into the cult.  

A common recruitment feature of a cult is to have in-group/out-group messaging: "we are good and they are bad".  People are triggered to be in the group so they think they are better than those outside the group.

Once a person has become involved in a cult, their self identity has become tightly linked to the group and therefore the group is seen as a part of who they are.

Cult members are being exploited.  No one wants to believe they are being exploited.  

Cult members behave as if their minds are infected. A sort of mental immune system will resist any change to the cult beliefs and behaviors.

Cult members will strongly emotionally react to anyone who says "That might be a cult". Intense emotional denial is one clear defining feature of individuals who have become entrapped by a cult. 

Examples of Cults

Examples of cult (and their leaders) include:

• Al Qaida "The Foundation" (Osama Bin Laden)
• Amway/American Way (Richard DeVos, Jay Andel)
• Branch Davidians (Victor Houteff, David Koresh)
• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Joseph Smith)
• Democratic Workers Party (Lyndon LaRouche, Marlene Dixon )
• Hare Krishnas (Swami Prabhupada)
• Mary Kay (May Kay Ash)
• Jehovah's Witnesses (Charles Russell, Nathan Knorr)
• International Churches of Christ (Baron Stone, Alexander Campbell)
• NXIVM (Keith Raniere, Nancy Salzman)
• Scientology (L. Ron Hubbard, Greta Van Susteren)
• Shaklee (Forrest Shaklee)
• Shining Path (Abimael Guzmán)
• The Collective (Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan)
• Unification Church (Sun Myong Moon)
• Worker's Revolutionary Party (Gerry Healy, Vanessa Redgrave)

Note that the above list is a small sampling of those organizations that have been legally (by law) identified as cults  in France, Germany, Japan, England, Australia, and/or the United States.

How Can You Help Cult Members?

The best prevention for cults is education.

The best cure for cult members is empathy.

You may have to leave the cult member's life.

Cults are a form of mental illness, a social and cultural infestation that requires diagnosis and treatment.  

Like drug addicts, alcoholics and gambling addicts, cult members can destroy families, communities, and cultures.

Deprogramming, the kidnapping and hold cult members against their will in order to un-indoctrinate them, does not work.  It may make the family member and friends feel better, after all they have "done something", but will most likely neither cure nor heal the cult members mind.  

The natural impulse is to confront your friend or loved one immediately, but the cults are ready for that. If it’s a cult then they will have planted a number of mental “booby traps” into the minds of their members. These booby traps are designed to be triggered by a number of common reactions to discovery of involvement in their group.

A cult knows it will be identified as a cult, and so they preempt that event by telling their new recruit that anyone who says they are in a cult is Satan (or some such enemy). Telling a cult member they are in a cult does not work.

Love the cult member. Treating them with empathy, understanding, and respect (the Golden Rule) works best for friends and family.  The cult will have portrayed you as an enemy and therefore you must constantly demonstrate you are not the cult members enemy.

Most of us are not equipped mentally or emotionally to help cult members leave their cults. Professional help is usually required.  Often long term counselling is need to help the cult member leave and recover from their cult.

Unless you know what you are doing, you may have to consider removing that cult member from your life.  Often those closest to cult members will be identified by the cult as being a problem.  Once this occurs, anything you do or say will be seen as "wrong" and exiting their day-to-day life becomes the best option for everyone involved.