Ten warning signs of a potentially unsafe group
1) Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.
2) No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.
3) No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement.
4) Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.
5) There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.
6) Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.
7) There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group.
8) Followers feel they can never be "good enough".
9) The group is always right.
10) The group is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.
Ten warning signs regarding people involved in/with a potentially unsafe group.
1) Extreme obsessiveness regarding the group resulting in the exclusion of almost every practical consideration.
2) Individual identity, the group, the leader and/or God as distinct and separate categories of existence become increasingly blurred. Instead, in the follower's mind these identities become substantially and increasingly fused--as that person's involvement with the group continues and deepens.
3) Whenever the group is criticized or questioned it is characterized as "persecution".
4) Uncharacteristically stilted and seemingly programmed conversation and mannerisms, cloning of the group/leader in personal behavior.
5) Dependency upon the group for problem solving, solutions, and definitions without meaningful reflective thought. A seeming inability to think independently or analyze situations without group involvement.
6) Hyperactivity centered on the group agenda, which seems to supercede any personal goals or individual interests.
7) A dramatic loss of spontaneity and sense of humor.
8) Increasing isolation from family and old friends unless they demonstrate an interest in the group.
9) Anything the group does can be justified no matter how harsh or harmful.
10) Former followers are at best-considered negative or worse evil and under bad influences. They can not be trusted and personal contact is avoided.
www.culteducation.com/warningsigns.html
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/27/cults-definition-religion
The destructiveness of groups called cults varies by degree, from labour violations, child abuse, medical neglect to, in some extreme and isolated situations, calls for violence or mass suicide.
Social aspects of cult-like behaviour
For a group to be a cult in the social sense, many of the following characteristics would have to be present. For a group to be a cult in the doctrinal sense, essentials (in this case of the Christian faith) would have to be violated. Some of the characteristics are listed below.
Submission:
Complete, almost unquestioned trust in the leadership.
Leaders are often seen as prophets, apostles, or special individuals with unusual connections to God. This helps a person give themselves over psychologically to trusting someone else for their spiritual welfare.
Increased submission to the leadership is rewarded with additional responsibilities and/or roles, and/or praises, increasing the importance of the person within the group.
Exclusivity
Their group is the only true religious system, or one of the few true remnants of God's people.
Persecution complex
Us against them mentality. Therefore, when someone (inside or outside of the group) corrects the group in doctrine and/or behavior, it is interpreted as persecution, which then is interpreted as validation.
Control
Control of members' actions and thinking through repeated indoctrination and/or threats of loss of salvation, or a place to live, or receiving curses from God, etc.
Isolation
Minimizing contact of church members with those outside the group. This facilitates a further control over the thinking and practices of the members by the leadership.
Love Bombing
Showing great attention and love to a person in the group by others in the group, to help transfer emotional dependence to the group.
Special Knowledge
Instructions and/or knowledge are sometimes said to be received by a leader(s) from God. This leader then informs the members.
The Special Knowledge can be received through visions, dreams, or new interpretations of sacred scriptures such as the Bible.
Indoctrination
The teachings of the group are repeatedly drilled into the members, but the indoctrination usually occurs around Special Knowledge.
Salvation
Salvation from the judgment of God is maintained through association and/or submission with the group, its authority, and/or its Special Knowledge.
Group Think
The group's coherence is maintained by the observance to policies handed down from those in authority.
There is an internal enforcement of policies by members who reward "proper" behavior, and those who perform properly are rewarded with further inclusion and acceptance by the group.
Cognitive Dissonance
Avoidance of critical thinking and/or maintaining logically impossible beliefs and/or beliefs that are inconsistent with other beliefs held by the group.
Avoidance of and/or denial of any facts that might contradict the group's belief system.
Shunning
Those who do not keep in step with group policies are shunned and/or expelled.
Gender Roles
Control of gender roles and definitions.
Severe control of gender roles sometimes leads to sexual exploitation.
Appearance Standards
Often a common appearance is required and maintained. For instance, women might wear prairie dresses, and/or their hair in buns, and/or no makeup, and/or the men might all wear white short-sleeved shirts, and/or without beards, or all wear beards.
carm.org/signs-practices-of-a-cult
Not all cults are religious. Some cults can be political or social.
There is nothing to see here. Nothing.