Cult checklist

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A 1979 Cult checklist, from a United States Congressional Research Service report. "Addendum I - Cult-Sect Characteristics."
A 1979 Cult checklist, from a United States Congressional Research Service report. "Addendum I - Cult-Sect Characteristics."

A cult checklist is a group of factors proposed to identify objectively which groups, "cults", or new religious movements are likely to abuse, exploit or otherwise harm its members.

Several checklists of "cult behavior" have been circulated by members of the anti-cult movement. 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 movement, such as sociologists and scholars of new religious movements are treated here too.

See also: Problems surrounding the definition of a cult.

Contents

[edit] Eileen Barker

A checklist, made by professor Eileen Barker, in which traits of groups that can evolve to be dangerous are described. Barker stated that her list was based on empirical research. The traits named include:

  1. A movement that separates itself from society, either geographically or socially;
  2. Adherents who become increasingly dependent on the movement for their view on reality;
  3. Important decisions in the lives of the adherents are made by others;
  4. Making sharp distinctions between us and them, divine and Satanic, good and evil, etc. that are not open for discussion;
  5. Leaders who claim divine authority for their deeds and for their orders to their followers;
  6. Leaders and movements who are unequivocally focused on achieving a certain goal.

[edit] Canadian Security Intelligence Service - Report # 2000/03 on Doomsday Cults

A report[1] by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, dated December 18, 1999, regarding Doomsday cults include the following apocalyptic cult checklist:

[edit] Characteristics

Apocalyptic Beliefs

  • dualism
  • the persecuted chosen
  • imminence
  • determinism
  • salvation through conflict

Charismatic Leadership

  • control over members
  • lack of restraint
  • withdrawal

Actions by Authorities

  • lack of comprehension
  • unsound negotiation
  • hasty action
  • spiral of amplification

[edit] Threats

Weapons Acquisition

  • firearms
  • explosives
  • chemical / biological weapons

Institutional Infiltration

  • political
  • business

Criminal Activity

  • crimes against individuals
  • transnational crime

[edit] Early warning signs

  • Intensification of illegal activities
  • Humiliating circumstances
  • Relocation to a rural area
  • Increasingly violent rhetoric
  • Struggle for leadership

[edit] 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".

[edit] 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 techniques.

[edit] James R. Lewis

In his book Cults in America, a scholar named James R. Lewis explains[citation needed] and then summarizes a number of properties he would expect a dangerous sect to have. The summary follows: (direct quote)

  1. 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;
  2. 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.;
  3. The leader sets forth ethical guidelines members must follow but from which the leader is exempt;
  4. The group is preparing to fight a literal, physical Armageddon against other human beings;
  5. The leader regularly makes public assertions that he or she knows is false and/or the group has a policy of routinely deceiving outsiders.

[edit] Isaac Bonewits

Isaac Bonewits provides an "Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame" [2] (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 "cult." 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 1–10, on the basis of 18 factors:

  1. internal control
  2. external control
  3. wisdom or knowledge claimed by leaders
  4. wisdom or knowledge credited to leaders
  5. dogma
  6. recruiting
  7. front groups
  8. wealth
  9. sexual manipulation
  10. sexual favoritism
  11. censorship
  12. isolation
  13. dropout control
  14. violence
  15. paranoia
  16. grimness
  17. surrender of will
  18. hypocrisy

The ABCDEF is available in multiple languages, including German, French, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese, on Bonewits's website. It was also referenced by a committee of the Union of South Africa as part of their efforts to reform that nation's marriage laws, which had previously recognized only marriages within the official state church[citation needed].

[edit] Anthony Storr

Anthony Storr, 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 Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Gurdjieff, Rudolf Steiner, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, Jim Jones and David Koresh.

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 schizophrenia. He also wrote in the book that the gurus who are eloquent, 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.

[edit] Robert J. Lifton

In 1961 Robert J. Lifton 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)

[edit] Steven Hassan

In Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves,[1][2] cult counselor Steven Hassan describes his "BITE model" stating that it is not necessary for every item to be present:

[edit] 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

[edit] 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)."

[edit] 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 clichés"). 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."
  • 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

[edit] 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.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Steve K.D. Eichel. "Building Resistance to Manipulation". The Journal of Professional & Ethical Hypnosis, 1, (Summer 1985), pp. 34-44.
  • Lewis, James. Common Signs of Destructive Cults. Available online
  • Lewis, James R. (1998). "Early Warning Signs", Cults in America : A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, California, USA: ABC-CLIO, 42. ISBN 1-57607-031-X. 
  • Shirley Harrison. "Cults - The Battle for God" ISBN 0-7470-1414-0 (May 24, 1990)
  1. ^ Hassan, Steven (2000) Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves. Aitan Publishing. (ISBN 0-9670688-0-0)
  2. ^ online version

[edit] External links

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