Cult Test

[savagewind]

Ask yourself these questions:

1. Do they claim to have a special corner on the truth, something no other group has?
2. Are you told to not question what is being taught, as the leadership are godly, honest, have divine authority and you must trust them?
3. Are you discouraged from asking questions as to why members have left, and expected to accept the reasons the group leadership gives you?
4. Do they put down other churches, groups, etc, while pointing out their faults and errors to build themselves up?
5. Do they use peoples faults and sins as examples of what to do and what not to do?
6. Are you made to feel your failures, as though your performance is not up to par to their righteous standards?
7. Do they recommend for you to be around their people, expecting you to attend all group activities? If you do not, are you are questioned about your spirituality or dedication?
8. Do they stop you from reading anything negative about themselves?
9. Do they call those who fall away enemies, dogs, or cancer, (mentally diseased)even using examples from the Bible or other such materials?
10. Do they place an emphasis on evil and the devil, declaring that the world outside is a threat to the group?
11. Do they defend themselves in every area?
12. Do they give importance to a spiritual goal, such as enlightenment, godliness, salvation, that has no real tangible way of being measured?
13. Do they operate in humility, or seem arrogant, and make demands on you to obey, using statements such as “real believers obey without question or if you really were a devoted follower you would do such and such"?

Be aware of:

An instant bonding or friendship without even knowing you
Being told you have a special calling or potential and that if you join you will move further ahead; flattery
When you ask questions about the history of the group, the answers are vague or avoided altogether
Feeling that something is being hidden from you

 

[Akivah]

A list of 100 tests to determine if an organization is a cult can be found at orange-papers.org slash orange-cult_a0 dot html. Though the list was written for Alcoholics Anonymous, it works for any cult.

 

[savagewind]

A list of 100 tests to determine if an organization is a cult can be found at orange-papers.org slash orange-cult_a0 dot html. Though the list was written for Alcoholics Anonymous, it works for any cult.

Interesting. I never till now thought AA could be considered a cult. Thanks for sharing.

 

[savagewind]

Some excerpts from a review of AA: Cult or Cure? Chapter9

1) Religious Orientation. Cults are usually centered around belief in a "higher power"
2) Irrationality. Cults discourage skepticism and rational thought.
3) Dogmatism. Cults invariably have The Truth and are highly antagonistic to those who question it.
4) A "Chosen People" Mentality. Given that cultists are alone in possessing a very precious commodity, The Truth, they almost always view themselves as better than other people, which means that nonbelievers and members of rival sects are frequently seen as less than human, if not outright tools of the devil.
5) Ideology Over Experience, Observation, and Logic. Cults not only demonize doubt and doubters, but they are also nearly immune to experience, observation, and logic that contradict their claims.
6) Separatism. Cult members almost always view themselves as outsiders, as different from the rest of society.
7) Exclusivity. Cults invariably view themselves as the only path to salvation.
8) Special Knowledge. This is closely related to the concept of exclusivity. Many cults claim that they are the route to personal and/or social salvation because they hold special, extremely valuable knowledge that's unavailable to the uninitiated.
9) Mind Control Techniques. These involve such measures as keeping members malnourished and in a state of exhaustion.
10) Thought-Stopping Language. ...as Lefton put it "the most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed...."
11) Manipulation Through Guilt. Many cults expertly manipulate their members through arousal of guilt feelings.
12) The Cult of Confession. ..confession serves the purpose of fostering identification as a member of the cult rather than as an individual human being.
13) A Charismatic Leader. Present in most cults, the leader can be living (Revolutionary Communist Party, Unification Church, LaRouchites) or dead (Synanon, Scientology, Mormons).
14) A Hierarchical, Authoritarian Structure. While this is a very common feature of cults, it should be noted that relatively new cults often have little structure. But as time passes, hierarchy and bureaucracy usually arise, as is to be expected in authoritarian setups. If a hierarchy does not arise—this sometimes happens because of the charismatic leader's fear of take-over attempts—the cult will probably disintegrate upon the leader's death, unless a new charismatic leader quickly arises to take his or her place.
15) Submission of the Individual to the "Will of God" or to some other abstraction, such as the "dictatorship of the proletariat." This means abandonment of individual decision making in favor of obeying the will of the abstraction as interpreted by the cult.
16) Self-Absorption. The primary focus of a cult is the cult itself. Whatever its ostensible aims, in reality a cult is overwhelmingly self-absorbed. Cults are prone to extreme over self-estimation, to what could be termed organizational narcissism; and so a cult's primary concerns are its own survival and expansion, with the ends justifying the means.
17) Dual Purposes. This extreme self-absorption leads to what Margaret Singer terms dual purposes—in other words, cults have their stated purposes and their real purposes.
18) Economic Exploitation. Cults not only exploit their own members, but, when they can manage it, nonmembers as well
19) Deceptive Recruiting Techniques. Some cults routinely deceive potential members, which is understandable: most potential recruits would not find attractive the prospect of slavishly following the orders of a gurufigure while working 16 to 18 hours a day for little or no pay.
20) Possessiveness. For financial and other reasons, cults will often go to great, sometimes illegal, lengths to retain members. The most extreme example of this was provided by the People's Temple Jonestown gulag, where members were physically prevented from leaving by Jim Jones' heavily armed goon squad. A less sinister example of this tendency is provided by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons. When a Mormon leaves the fold, the LDS Church never gives up its attempts to recover its lost sheep. It will track the apostate for decades, and it's not unusual for LDS representatives to contact former members 30 or 40 years after they left the church in an effort to talk them into rejoining.

21) A Closed, All-Encompassing Environment.... The less contact that members have with external reality, the more natural the hothouse environment of the cult seems, the more natural the very peculiar beliefs of the cult seem, and the more natural it seems that everyone should follow the orders of the charismatic leader or the controlling hierarchy.
22) Millenarianism. Many cults, especially Christian fundamentalist cults, prophesy that the world is coming to an end.
23) Violence, Coercion, and Harassment. Coercion is routine in cults.

 

[savagewind]

I underlined the part about the Mormons because I would like to hear a truthful rebuttle about it. Thank you.

I was a Jehovah's Witness and left. It seems they could not care less about my leaving. I have not been bothered any way by them.

 

[arthra]

I came across "five defining characteristics of a cult":

1. It has a charismatic leader demanding total authority and who is plagued by ethical improprieties.
2. It uses "controlling techniques"--primarily confession--which fosters an unhealthy dependency and the loss of independent thought in the cult follower.
3. It fosters social isolation--primarily by viewing noncult members as "impure" or "unsaved"--and physical isolation.
4. It utilizes extreme or fanatical behavior, including excessive rituals, aggressive "witnessing," and the promotion of violence.
5. It uses secrecy and deception, especially in doctrine and finances.

 

[savagewind]

I came across "five defining characteristics of a cult":

1. It has a charismatic leader demanding total authority and who is plagued by ethical improprieties.
2. It uses "controlling techniques"--primarily confession--which fosters an unhealthy dependency and the loss of independent thought in the cult follower.
3. It fosters social isolation--primarily by viewing noncult members as "impure" or "unsaved"--and physical isolation.
4. It utilizes extreme or fanatical behavior, including excessive rituals, aggressive "witnessing," and the promotion of violence.
5. It uses secrecy and deception, especially in doctrine and finances.

Those define a dangerous cult. Not all cults are dangerous.....are they?

 

[savagewind]

What isn't a cult?

Do groups that are cultish foster feelings for a desire to be led, no matter what?

Some physical diseases spread, that's a fact. Is it possible that the feeling a person has for the need to be led is also spread? It would be difficult, I think, to find any group of people who are not defined by their desire to be homogenous. And any groupp like that, there are plenty, fit at least some, if not most, of the identifying marks of a cult.

Why? Why is the World all about CULTS?

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

I think every organised religion is basically a cult, they just work on different degrees of "harmfulness"

 

[HonestJoe]

I came across "five defining characteristics of a cult":

1. It has a charismatic leader demanding total authority and who is plagued by ethical improprieties.
2. It uses "controlling techniques"--primarily confession--which fosters an unhealthy dependency and the loss of independent thought in the cult follower.
3. It fosters social isolation--primarily by viewing noncult members as "impure" or "unsaved"--and physical isolation.
4. It utilizes extreme or fanatical behavior, including excessive rituals, aggressive "witnessing," and the promotion of violence.
5. It uses secrecy and deception, especially in doctrine and finances.

I've got some bad news for the USA then.

 

[savagewind]

I've got some bad news for the USA then.

I was also thinking some countries can be clasified as cultish. Not the USA though. It's leader does not have all the authority, it's people can definitely not be considered blind followers, and it has a constitution that discourages cult status. Also it's leaders have been relatively free of serious accusation.

 

[savagewind]

It's interesting to me that those same criteria that distinguishes the USA as a non cult are used by certain cult personalities to prove they are not a cult.

 

[McBell]

I was also thinking some countries can be clasified as cultish. Not the USA though. It's leader does not have all the authority, it's people can definitely not be considered blind followers, and it has a constitution that discourages cult status. Also it's leaders have been relatively free of serious accusation.

Guess that depends upon whether or not:

a cult can be led by "committee"...
We go with the reality of the group or the public perception of the group or what the group is supposed to be doing.​

 

[McBell]

I think every organised religion is basically a cult, they just work on different degrees of "harmfulness"

Do you limit the cult status to religious groups?
I don't.

 

[savagewind]

Guess that depends upon whether or not a cult can be led by "committee"...

Even if the commitee of the USA did have total control (it doesn't imo), it is often changing because of elections. It doesn't fit cult status. The governing body does though. (I'll have my point with salt, please) HAHA

I think on all the lists they don't fit just one of the criteria for cult status. But that is just one person's opinion.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

Do you limit the cult status to religious groups?
I don't.

I assumed this thread was about religious cults as it is in the comparative religion section, but what we generally consider to be cults are religious/spiritualist based. Maybe it comes from the word "occult?" I'm not sure about that.

 

[savagewind]

Do you limit the cult status to religious groups?
I don't.

Right. Even a society group can be considered a cult by it's defining it's self by cult standards.

 

[McBell]

I think on all the lists they don't fit just one of the criteria for cult status. But that is just one person's opinion.

Cult is a rather subjective term.
My experience has been that the most commonly used definition of "cult" is:

"any group with beliefs that differ from the person using the word cult"​

 

[savagewind]

I assumed this thread was about religious cults as it is in the comparative religion section, but what we generally consider to be cults are religious/spiritualist based. Maybe it comes from the word "occult?" I'm not sure about that.

Good point. The thread is also about the spread of cult fever. It seems to be bred in religion and then spreads. Does anyone think it might be the other way around? Does it spread to religion from society? Or as I propose, from religion to society?

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

actually it comes from the Latin word cultus which means worship, so there you go.