cult characteristics

[exit_and_how]

About the doctor/disease analogy...

The point was that if you have a simple test for cultness - say something that gives you back a score 0-10 (10 meaning definite cult), then it's a good thing - even if it fails a small amount of the time (false positives), because if you got a false positive, you could then go on to a more detailed list/test that would give you further information. It's a good thing if it's simple and is accurate much of the time (say 95&#37.

So, for example, if a person took the first test and it came back saying 8 and there was some disagreement, one could then go take the more detailed test and it might say you are actually a 6 because the answers were more complicated than what the first test assumed perhaps.

---------------------------------

And about being "a little suspicous" about LDS - this is my feeling, and i think it is reasonable, and you do not have permission to invalidate my feeling. Thank you.

 

[exit_and_how]

testing...

 

[Scuba Pete]

Quite often the term cult is used as a pejorative rather than a descriptive. The higher the level of emotion, the harder it is to make a conclusive determination.

I was able to watch parts of a documentary on Jim Jones this past Sunday morning. It struck me, that the real problem we have with these types of cults are that they culminate in violence. Differentiating between the harmful and benign cults is what needs to be done.

 

[DeepShadow]

The point was that if you have a simple test for cultness - say something that gives you back a score 0-10 (10 meaning definite cult), then it's a good thing - even if it fails a small amount of the time (false positives), because if you got a false positive, you could then go on to a more detailed list/test that would give you further information. It's a good thing if it's simple and is accurate much of the time (say 95%).

I understand the point of the analogy. The problem is that it's a false analogy, because so far, you have failed to show that a) the first test (your gut, apparently) is anywhere near 95% accurate, b) a secondary test exists, c) the secondary test is unworkable the first time around. The system you suggest exists in some parts of medicine because one test is harder, more expensive, etc. Can you show that there are two tests for cultishness, one more difficult than the other?

I'd much rather get an objective definition, such as the one supplied by Orontes in another thread:

"A cult is a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g. isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of [consequences of] leaving it, etc) designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community."

Source: West, L.J, & Langone, M. D. (1985). Cultism: A conference for scholars and policy makers. Summary of proceedings of the Wingspread conference on cultism

So, for example, if a person took the first test and it came back saying 8 and there was some disagreement, one could then go take the more detailed test and it might say you are actually a 6 because the answers were more complicated than what the first test assumed perhaps.

What's especially unfortunate is that your disease analogy reveals a lack of understanding of statistics, even in the medical model itself. The current test for HIV is 98% accurate, but if we applied it to everyone in the U.S., we'd get far many more false positives than there are actual infected people. The expense of running additional tests to confirm would be larger than the entire Ryan White Foundation annual budget.

(Source: Starbird, Michael and Burger, Edward; Coincidences, Chaos, and All That Math Jazz)

That's why we don't apply the HIV test to everyone, just the people who are high-risk. But you haven't offered any filters to show who is high-risk. Hence my problem.

As someone who's has some contact with cult deprogrammers, I think that your sorting method, while well-intentioned, will create a prohibitive amount of work for them, and ruin the good faith they have with the public. You are in effect calling 911 every time you smell smoke. Can't you see how that could do more harm than good? Your attempts to stop the next Jonesboro or Heaven's Gate event could very well help them happen.

And about being "a little suspicous" about LDS - this is my feeling, and i think it is reasonable, and you do not have permission to invalidate my feeling. Thank you.

I wasn't trying to invalidate your feeling, at all. You are welcome to it. I was trying to see if you have more to go on than just your feeling. Something that can be reportable to the authorities.

You want to know my feeling? I think that you are well-intentioned but misguided. And I'll even give you permission to invalidate my feeling: by offering me evidence to the contrary. Show me what criteria you might use, if the above definition is not enough.

 

[DeepShadow]

"A cult is a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g. isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of [consequences of] leaving it, etc) designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community."

This definition works well for me. It fits most of the genuinely harmful cults that I know of, and it give the common person objective criteria that can be reported to the authorities in an emergency.

Let's break it apart and get things to look for:

A cult is a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea or thing...

This is what everyone looks for, and it's the most subjective part. The big problem is that everyone has their own definition of what's "great or excessive devotion or dedication." This gives people cause to point the finger at anyone who looks like they believe more strongly than they do. Thus, to a Sunday Christian, active Christians are a cult because they are so devoted. To the active Christians, anyone who goes door-to-door is a cult, because that seems fanatic from their point of view, and so forth.

Fortunately, this is not where the definition ends. It has the word "and," which is crucial, because this means a true dangerous cult cannot be quantified by strength of belief alone, but by the tactics they use to hold on to people.

"...and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control..."

Now this the serious stuff! We have a list of things that people can look for:

isolation from former friends and family,

Now this is a dead giveaway, but some modern cults are getting smarter. They use other methods to establish emotional isolation. In my experience, one thing that friends and family can look for is complete dismissal of whatever they say.

debilitation,

I'm not sure what is meant by this. I'll look it up. Anyone want to comment in the mean time?

use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience,

Now this is my bailiwick! This is talking about the different forms of hazing and brainwashing, which are serious business. Hazing deals with "earning" the respect a group by allowing them to abuse you, while brainwashing is related to Stockholm syndrome, where people are abuse until they see their abusers as all-powerful.

powerful group pressures,

Like reporting of friends and family.

information management,

An absolute red flag! Every dangerous cult I've heard of has used this, and it's easy to spot.

suspension of individuality or critical judgment,

This is harder to quantify objectively, and quickly becomes subject to the biases of the original criteria. I'd be more inclined to look for the methods used to enforce it.

promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of [consequences of] leaving it,

Harder to spot from the outside, but another dead giveaway when you see it. This is usually coupled with the reporting I mentioned above.

designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community."

And here's the wrapup. Based on this definition, I'll be looking for isolation, hazing, information control, reporting, etc.

 

[exit_and_how]

It is not obligatory for me to come up with a test for cultness or to prove its accuracy either. My point is that people can and should seek accurate checklists, and when a good list already exists more people ought to take a serious look at it. However, when getting to the information and going through it is so time consuming, maybe a simpler more concise list would suffice and would more quickly prevent would-be suckers from getting into a clearly bad group in the first place. If someone wants to argue fine points, then that person could go and look at the more comprehensive information and start analyzing it. If someone gets offended that his/her religion now might be considered a cult, so be it - it comes with the territory I guess.

As for cost, there is no cost in getting information other than time.

Starting this thread with my own list, others have improved it. Early in the discussion, someone mentioned another list:

ABCDEF - the Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame

 

[exit_and_how]

The following was sent as a newsletter announcement from the
ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association) via email recently:


<start>

The latest issue of the ICSA e-Newsletter (vol. 6, no. 2, 2007) has been posted at:

http://www.icsahome.com/infoserv_enews/affnb_2007_06_02.htm

The issue includes these articles:


Benjamin, Elliot. On Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute: An Experiential Analysis


Bowen, William. Opinion Column: Jehovah’s Witnesses Lose Court Battle to Suppress Freedom of Speech


Fagan, Kevin. Opinion Column: Bishop Farrell’s “Differences of Opinion”

It also includes news on groups, people, events, and publications.



Regards,
Michael D. Langone, Ph.D.
Editor
<end>

 

[nutshell]

Applying labels like "cult" tends to say more about the person giving the label than the one receiving the label.

 

[jkdenm]

nutshell wrote:

Applying labels like "cult" tends to say more about the person giving
the label than the one receiving the label.

i like the discussion of cults and this tends to get one thinking about their own group.
as long as there is no finger pointing to any one particular group, then we're ok.

 

[Blindinglight]

Any and all religions are cults.

The definitions according to dictionary.com
1.a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies. 2.an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult. 3.the object of such devotion. 4.a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc. 5.Sociology. a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols. 6.a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader. 7.the members of such a religion or sect. 8.any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific. &#8211;adjective 9.of or pertaining to a cult. 10.of, for, or attracting a small group of devotees: a cult movie.
Even ones you would probably never even consider calling a cult, such as Christianity, fit more than one of the above definitions.

 

[exit_and_how]

definition #6 would be the closest thing to the focus of this thread...

6.a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.

except my definition would replace "religion" with "religious group" because such a group could not be considered a religion. Also, i would include the word "harmful".

 

[exit_and_how]

the following link as weekly updates to News and Announcements
concerning cultic studies:

http://icsahome.com/infoserv_new/icsanew.asp

 

[groovyable]

Yet it might be good finding out what cult tendencies our and how to spot them... and it maybe even easier to point you fingure saying 'ooooo Jehovah witnesses, LDS Church, Seventh Day Advetists, or cults' Yet i find people who say this are people who have no idea what these faiths believe in are that they have had bad experiances with the religions, yet you find people having bad experiances with all religions. As soon as you start to studie/ look into, JW,LDS,SDA you find that these 'new' religions are not cults. I dought most people here would say Latter Day Saints, JW and SDA are cults? So who are these cults that we have to be carefull of and why?

 

[exit_and_how]

Yes, it is good to find out what cult tendencies are and how to spot them.

What is also good is to know how to leave an organization once if you
have decided it is too cult-like for you. There are cases of people being
in a group for decades before waking up. These people sometimes need
special help to handle life without it - to look at what they've been missing,
to know that the cult isn't the ONLY possibility - all
without trashing the truths or friends they did find while inside -
and help them find themselves a direction without all the baggage of a cult.

I would not ever tell a person that a particular religion is a cult - i'd rather
have them decide for themselves. People have said that the catholic church is a cult. I'm not going to tell them they're wrong.

 

[rojse]

The problem with definitions of cults is that I can find major religions that fit into those categories, just to be argumentative, but to also illustrate the point that the word cult is quite subjective and quite a loaded term.

I read a quote somewhere, that stated that cults were merely religions without political power, and that is the only definition for a cult that I agree with so far.

 

[exit_and_how]

Why some people get defensive about their religion when the word "cult" is used, i can only fathom. If the word "cult" evokes bad images and thus gets pegged as a loaded term, maybe there is a reason for this. Maybe it's because there really have been (and still are) religious groups that were/are harmful (more harm than good) - see definition #6 above.

I would rather people think of cultness on a scale (say from 0.0 to 10.0). If you think your religion is a 5.0 - then this would mean that in some ways you think it's a cult and some ways not. If you think your group is a 10.0, then get the h*ll out of there!

cultness has nothing to do with size.

 

[rojse]

Why some people get defensive about their religion when the word "cult" is used, i can only fathom. If the word "cult" evokes bad images and thus gets pegged as a loaded term, maybe there is a reason for this. Maybe it's because there really have been (and still are) religious groups that were/are harmful (more harm than good) - see definition #6 above.

I would rather people think of cultness on a scale (say from 0.0 to 10.0). If you think your religion is a 5.0 - then this would mean that in some ways you think it's a cult and some ways not. If you think your group is a 10.0, then get the h*ll out of there!

cultness has nothing to do with size.

Cultness provokes a reaction because it is a loaded word - there are a lot of negative connotations behind it. It does not matter whether there is really a reason behind this or not, merely that people think that there is.

Although a scale may seem like a good idea, how would you rate "cultness" on a scale? What factors should be considered? What weighting should there be on these factors? Then we get back to how we define the word cult, which is hard enough as it is already.

 

[Popeyesays]

To refer to religions as "cults" knowing that the word is a loaded term, is equivalent to referring to Afro-Americans by the "N" word and expecting people to accept the term as descriptive, not purjorative.

I somehow think that suggesting a sliding scale would not protect one from potentially violent response when using a purjorative word.

Regards,
Scott

 

[Booko]

Why some people get defensive about their religion when the word "cult" is used, i can only fathom.

Because "cult" is just used to mean "false" and imply the followers are either "deluded" or "dangerous" and no, people tend not to appreciate being insulted.

If the word "cult" evokes bad images and thus gets pegged as a loaded term, maybe there is a reason for this.

Yes, rather like !^&%* and ^%*@^ are loaded terms. They are mostly used in rude ways and are terribly overused.

cultness has nothing to do with size.

In the way the term is (ab)used, it certainly does.

No one ever describes the dominant religion in their culture as a "cult."

Funny how that works.

 

[Scuba Pete]

I have never heard the word "cult" used, except in a pejorative or a derogatory sense. Rather than being a useful descriptor, it has devolved into being a mere epithet. I use the word infrequently at best, and I almost always reserve it's use to describe organizations that I have been a part of.