What is a cult?

• small group that wants to secede from its social origins

• disciples of heretical leader• gather around leader or ideology, for

religious or nonreligious purposes• use strict discipline/mind control methods

organized around master/specific ideology

Characteristics of leader

• Charismatic• Demanding• Possibly Abusive• Controlling• Only one in contact

with answers (God)• Claim “Big event

around corner”

Cults based on charismatic leadership follow routinization of charisma, described by German sociologist Max Weber

Types of Cults

• Doomsday• Satanic• Religious• Other world• New Age• Christian

Abberational

• Rev. Sun Myung Moon-The Unification Church, The Moonies

• David Koresh-The Branch Davidians• Jim Jones-The People’s Temple• Shoko Ashara-Aun Shinri Kyo (Sacred

Supreme Truth)• Charles Manson-The Manson Family• Heaven’s Gate – Ron Appelwhite

Cult ProspectsPeople with:• deprived childhoods • Confusion about religion• Low and wandering self-

esteem• Searching for

new identities• Feel alienated• failure/personal crisis• Freshmen/seniors/ Jobless

Recruitment

S e du ction P e rsua s ion F a sc in a tion

T h ree S te ps

Tactics• Milieu control: manage inner

communication - control over all person sees, hears, reads, and writes

• Mystical Manipulation: extensive personal manipulation (mostly God centered)

• Demand for purity: dividing world into pure/impure groups - everything in group is pure - everything outside group is evil

• Cultic confession of sins: subjected to patterns of criticism and self-criticism by group members

• Sacred science: aura of sacredness around cults doctrine

• Loading the language: words are given new meanings according to organization

IE: MARRIAGE REDEFINED TO INCLUDE ONLY LEADER

TATICS

TATICS• Doctrine over person:

cults doctrine more valid, true, and real than any aspect of human character and/or experience

• Dispensing of existence: idea that people who are not in group can’t be enlightened or saved

Ways to exit cult• Deprogramming• Family Intervention• Thought Reform • Exit Counseling• Run fast