A
cult checklist is a group of factors proposed to identify objectively which groups, "
cultCult may popularly refer to a religious group with relatively few adherents whose beliefs or practices are regarded by others as strange or sinister.The term "cult" was originally used to denote a system of ritual practices...
s", or
new religious movementA new religious movement is a faith-based community, or ethical, spiritual, or philosophical group of recent origin. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may be part of a wider religion, such as Christianity, in which case they will be distinct from pre-existing denominations...
s are likely to abuse, exploit or otherwise harm its members.
Several checklists of "cult behavior" have been circulated by members of the
anti-cult movementThe "anti-cult movement" is a term used by academics and others to refer to groups and individuals who oppose cults and new religious movements. Sociologists David G...
. These lists vary by the terminology they use, and how they group the behaviors they describe.
The check lists for problematic groups and new religious movements that are generally not labelled "cult checklists" and that have been made by people or organizations not associated by the
anti-cult movementThe "anti-cult movement" is a term used by academics and others to refer to groups and individuals who oppose cults and new religious movements. Sociologists David G...
, such as sociologists and scholars of new religious movements are treated here too.
See also: Problems surrounding the definition of a cult.
A checklist, made by professor
Eileen BarkerEileen Vartan Barker OBE, born in Edinburgh, UK, is a professor in sociology, an emeritus member of the London School of Economics , and a consultant to that institution's Centre for the Study of Human Rights...
PhD, in which traits of groups that can evolve to be dangerous are described.
A
cult checklist is a group of factors proposed to identify objectively which groups, "
cultCult may popularly refer to a religious group with relatively few adherents whose beliefs or practices are regarded by others as strange or sinister.The term "cult" was originally used to denote a system of ritual practices...
s", or
new religious movementA new religious movement is a faith-based community, or ethical, spiritual, or philosophical group of recent origin. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may be part of a wider religion, such as Christianity, in which case they will be distinct from pre-existing denominations...
s are likely to abuse, exploit or otherwise harm its members.
Several checklists of "cult behavior" have been circulated by members of the
anti-cult movementThe "anti-cult movement" is a term used by academics and others to refer to groups and individuals who oppose cults and new religious movements. Sociologists David G...
. These lists vary by the terminology they use, and how they group the behaviors they describe.
The check lists for problematic groups and new religious movements that are generally not labelled "cult checklists" and that have been made by people or organizations not associated by the
anti-cult movementThe "anti-cult movement" is a term used by academics and others to refer to groups and individuals who oppose cults and new religious movements. Sociologists David G...
, such as sociologists and scholars of new religious movements are treated here too.
See also: Problems surrounding the definition of a cult.
Eileen Barker
A checklist, made by professor
Eileen BarkerEileen Vartan Barker OBE, born in Edinburgh, UK, is a professor in sociology, an emeritus member of the London School of Economics , and a consultant to that institution's Centre for the Study of Human Rights...
PhD, in which traits of groups that can evolve to be dangerous are described. Barker stated that her list was based on
empirical researchEmpirical research is research that bases its findings on direct or indirect observation as its test of reality. Such research may also be conducted according to hypothetico-deductive procedures, such as those developed from the work of R. A. Fisher....
. The traits named include:
- A movement that separates itself from society, either geographically or socially;
- Adherents who become increasingly dependent on the movement for their view on reality;
- Important decisions in the lives of the adherents are made by others;
- Making sharp distinctions between us and them, divine
Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power, or its attributes or manifestations in the world...
and SatanSatan is an embodiment of antagonism that originates from the Abrahamic religions, being traditionally considered an angel in Judeo-Christian belief, and a Jinn in Islamic belief...
ic, good and evil, etc. that are not open for discussion;
- Leaders who claim divine authority for their deeds and for their orders to their followers;
- Leaders and movements who are unequivocally focused on achieving a certain goal.
Shirley Harrison
In her book "Cults - the battle for God", Shirley Harrison has a list of the characteristics of a potential destructive cult:
- A powerful leader who claims divinity or a special mission entrusted to him/her from above;
- Revealed scriptures or doctrine;
- Deceptive recruitment;
- Totalitarianism and alienation of members from their families and/or friends;
- The use of indoctrination, by sophisticated mind-control techniques, based on the concept that once you can make a person behave the way you want, then you can make him/her believe what you want;
- Slave labour - that is, the use of members on fundraising or missionary activities for little or no pay to line the leader's pockets;
- Misuse of funds and the accumulation of wealth for personal or political purposes at the expense of members; and
- Exclusivity - "we are right and everyone else is wrong".
Steve Eichel
In his "Building Resistance to Manipulation", the psychologist Steve K.D. Eichel created a checklist of signs of a sect designed to brainwash its members into loyal followers:
- Isolate them in new surroundings apart from old friends or reference-points;
- Provide them with instant acceptance from a seemingly loving group;
- Keep them away from competing or critical ideas;
- Provide an authority figure that everyone seems to acknowledge as having some special skill or awareness;
- Provide a philosophy that seems logical and appears to answer all or the most important questions in life;
- Structure all or most activities so that there is little time for privacy or independent action or thought, provide a sense of "us" versus "them";
- Promise instant or imminent solutions to deep or long-term problems;
- Employ covert or disguised hypnotic
Hypnosis is a mental state or set of attitudes usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a series of preliminary instructions and suggestions. Hypnotic suggestions may be delivered by a hypnotist in the presence of the subject, or may be...
techniques.
James R. Lewis
In his book
Cults in America, a scholar named James R. Lewis explains and then summarizes a number of properties he would expect a dangerous sect to have. The summary follows: (direct quote)
- The organization is willing to place itself above the law. With the exceptions noted earlier (in the full document linked below), this is probably the most important characteristic;
- The leadership dictates (rather than suggests) important personal (as opposed to spiritual) details of followers' lives, such as whom to marry, what to study in college, etc.;
- The leader sets forth ethical guidelines members must follow but from which the leader is exempt;
- The group is preparing to fight a literal, physical Armageddon
Armageddon is the site of an epic battle associated with the end time prophecies of the Abrahamic religions....
against other human beings;
- The leader regularly makes public assertions that he or she knows is false and/or the group has a policy of routinely deceiving outsiders.
Isaac Bonewits
Isaac BonewitsPhillip Emmons Isaac Bonewits is an influential Neopagan leader and author. He is a liturgist, speaker, journalist, Neo-druid priest, and a singer, songwriter, and independent recording artist...
provides an "Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame" (first published in his book "Real Magic" in 1979) intended to evaluate the degree of resemblance of a given religious or secular group to what the observer using this tool might consider a "
cultCult may popularly refer to a religious group with relatively few adherents whose beliefs or practices are regarded by others as strange or sinister.The term "cult" was originally used to denote a system of ritual practices...
." As he puts it,
"The purpose of this evaluation tool is to help both amateur and professional observers, including current or would-be members, of various organizations (including religious, occult, psychological or political groups) to determine just how dangerous a given group is liable to be, in comparison with other groups, to the physical and mental health of its members and of other people subject to its influence."
His checklist, known as the ABCDEF ("Because understanding cults should be elementary"), allows the user to evaluate groups on a scale of 1 to 10, on the basis of 18 factor, namely:
- Internal control
- External control
- Wisdom or knowledge claimed by leaders
- Wisdom or knowledge credited to leaders
- Dogma
Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from. The term derives from Greek "that which seems to one, opinion or belief" and that from , "to think, to suppose, to imagine"...
- Recruiting
- Front groups
- Wealth
- Sexual manipulation
- Sexual favoritism
- Censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor.-Rationale:...
- Isolation
- Dropout control
- Violence
- Paranoia
Paranoia is a thought process heavily influenced by excessive anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs concerning a perceived threat towards oneself. In the original Greek, παράνοια simply means madness...
- Grimness
- Surrender of will
- Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is the act of pretending to have beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy is thus a kind of lie. Hypocrisy may come from a desire to hide from others actual motives or feelings....
The ABCDEF is available in multiple languages, including German, French, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese, on Bonewits's website.
Anthony Storr
Anthony StorrAnthony Storr was an English psychiatrist and author. Born in London, he was a child who was to endure the typical trauma of early 20th century boarding schools. He was educated at Winchester, Christ's College, the University of Cambridge and Westminster Hospital...
, a psychiatry professor in the United Kingdom, discusses common traits of good and bad gurus in his book,
Feet of Clay - A Study of Gurus.
Storr defines the term guru as people having "special knowledge" who tell, referring to this special knowledge, how other people should lead their lives. He applies the term "guru" to figures as diverse as
JesusJesus of Nazareth —also known as Jesus Christ or occasionally Jesus the Christ—is the central figure of Christianity. Within most Christian denominations...
,
MuhammadMuhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh , is the founder of the religion of Islam [ إِسْلامْ ] and is regarded by Muslims as a messenger and prophet of , the last and the greatest law-bearer in a series of Islamic prophets as taught by the...
,
BuddhaSiddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher in the north eastern region of the Indian subcontinent who founded Buddhism. He is regarded by Buddhists as the Supreme Buddha of our age. The time of his birth and death are uncertain: most early 20th-century historians dated his lifetime as c...
, Gurdjieff,
Rudolf SteinerRudolf Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social thinker, architect and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
,
Carl JungCarl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology known as Jungian psychology. Jung's approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in countercultural movements across the globe...
,
Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud , Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology...
,
Jim JonesJames Warren "Jim" Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 death of more than 900 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the deaths of nine other people at a nearby airstrip and in Georgetown.Jones was born in Indiana and...
and
David KoreshDavid Koresh , born Vernon Wayne Howell, was the leader of a Branch Davidian religious sect, believing himself to be its final prophet. A 1993 raid by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the subsequent siege by the FBI ended with the burning of the Branch Davidian...
.
He argues that most gurus promise followers "new paths to salvation", share common character traits (e.g. being loners without friends) and that some suffer from a mild form of
schizophreniaSchizophrenia , from the Greek roots skhizein and phrēn, phren- is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality...
. He also wrote in the book that the gurus who are
eloquentEloquence is fluent, forcible, elegant or persuasive speaking in public. It is primarily the power of expressing strong emotions in striking and appropriate language, thereby producing conviction or persuasion...
, authoritarian, or interfere in the private lives of followers are the ones who are more likely to be unreliable and dangerous. He further refers to Eileen Barker's list to recognize dangerous situations in religious movements.
Robert J. Lifton
In 1961
Robert J. LiftonRobert Jay Lifton is an American psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence and for his theory of thought reform...
wrote
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism after studying the effects of mind control on American prisoners of war under the Communist Chinese. Lifton outlines eight major factors that can be used to identify whether a group is a destructive cult or not:
- Milieu control (controlled relations with the outer world)
- Mystic manipulation (the group has a higher purpose than the rest)
- Confession (confess past and present sins)
- Self-sanctification through purity (pushing the individual towards an unattainable perfection)
- Aura of sacred science (beliefs of the group are sacrosanct and perfect)
- Loaded language (new meanings to words, encouraging black-and-white thinking)
- Doctrine over person (the group is more important than the individual)
- Dispensed existence (insiders are saved, outsiders are doomed)
Steven Hassan
In
Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves, cult counselor
Steven HassanSteven Alan Hassan is a licensed mental health counselor and an exit counselor. Hassan was an early advocate of exit counseling, and is the author of two books on the subject of "cults", and what he describes as their use of mind control, thought reform, and the psychology of influence in order...
describes his "BITE model" stating that it is not necessary for every item to be present:
Behavior Control
- Regulation of individual's physical reality
- "Where, how, and with whom the member lives and associates, what clothes, colors, hairstyles the person wears, what food the person eats, drinks, adopts, and rejects, how much sleep the person is able to have, financial dependence, little or no time spent on leisure, entertainment, vacations."
- Major time commitment required for indoctrination sessions and group rituals
- Need to ask permission for major decisions
- Need to report thoughts, feelings, and activities to superiors
- Rewards and punishments (behavior modification techniques -- positive and negative)
- Individualism discouraged; "group think" prevails
- Rigid rules and regulations
- Need for obedience and dependency
Information Control
- Use of deception
- Deliberately holding back information, distorting information to make it more "acceptable," "outright lying."
- Access to non-cult sources of information minimized or discouraged
- Media (books, articles, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio), critical information, former members, keep members so busy they don't have time to think and check things out.
- Compartmentalization of information; Outsider vs. Insider doctrines
- "Information is not freely accessible, information varies at different levels and missions within pyramid, leadership decides who "needs to know" what and when."
- Spying on other members is encouraged
- "Pairing up with "buddy" system to monitor and control, reporting deviant thoughts, feelings, and actions to leadership, individual behavior monitored by whole group."
- Extensive use of cult generated information and propaganda
- "Media (newsletters, magazines, journals, audio tapes, videotapes, etc), misquotations, statements taken out of context from non-cult sources."
- Unethical use of confession
- "Information about "sins" used to abolish identity boundaries, past "sins" used to manipulate and control (no forgiveness or absolution)."
Thought Control
- Need to internalize the group's doctrine as "Truth"
- "Adopting the group's map of reality as "Reality" (Map = Reality), Black and White thinking, Good vs. Evil, Us vs. Them (inside vs. outside)."
- Use of "loaded" language (for example, "thought-terminating cliché
A thought-terminating cliché is a commonly used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to quell cognitive dissonance. Though the phrase in and of itself may be valid in certain contexts, its application as a means of dismissing dissent or justifying fallacious logic is what makes it...
s". ). Words are the tools we use to think with. These "special" words constrict rather than expand understanding, and can even stop thoughts altogether. They function to reduce complexities of experience into trite, platitudinous "buzz words" (The best analogy would be NewspeakNewspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it is described as being "the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year". Orwell included an essay about it in the form of an appendix in which the basic principles of the...
in Nineteen Eighty Four by George OrwellEric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist and journalist...
).
- Only "good" and "proper" thoughts are encouraged.
- Use of hypnotic techniques to induce altered mental states
- Manipulation of memories and implantation of false memories
- Use of thought-stopping techniques, which shut down "reality testing" by stopping "negative" thoughts and allowing only "good" thoughts
- Rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism. No critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy seen as legitimate
- No alternative belief systems viewed as legitimate, good, or useful
Emotional Control
- Manipulate and narrow the range of a person's feelings.
- Make the person feel that any problems are always their fault, never the leader's or the group's.
- Excessive use of guilt: identity guilt (who you are, not living up to your potential, your family, your past, your affiliations, your thoughts, feelings, actions), social guilt, historical guilt.
- Excessive use of fear: fear of thinking independently, fear of the "outside" world, fear of enemies, fear of losing one's "salvation", fear of leaving the group or being shunned by group, fear of disapproval.
- Extremes of emotional highs and lows.
- Ritual and often public confession of "sins".
- Phobia indoctrination: inculcating irrational fears about ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader's authority. The person under mind control cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service - Report # 2000/03 on Doomsday Cults
A report by the
Canadian Security Intelligence ServiceThe Canadian Security Intelligence Service is the primary intelligence agency of the Canadian government. It is responsible for collecting, analyzing and reporting intelligence on threats to Canada's national security, and conducting operations, covert and overt, within Canada and abroad.Its...
, dated December 18, 1999, regarding severely
destructive cult"Destructive cult" is a term used to refer to religions and other groups which have caused harm to their own members or to others. Some researchers define "harm" in this case with a narrow focus, specifically groups which have deliberately physically injured or killed other individuals, while...
s include the following apocalyptic cult checklist:
Apocalyptic Beliefs
- dualism
- the persecuted chosen
- imminence
- determinism
- salvation through conflict
Actions by Authorities
- lack of comprehension
- unsound negotiation
- hasty action
- spiral of amplification
Early warning signs
- Intensification of illegal activities
- Humiliating circumstances
- Relocation to a rural area
- Increasingly violent rhetoric
- Struggle for leadership
See also
- Cult
Cult may popularly refer to a religious group with relatively few adherents whose beliefs or practices are regarded by others as strange or sinister.The term "cult" was originally used to denote a system of ritual practices...
- "Guru" in a Western context
External links