Cults: The Basics

A cult can be either a sharply-bounded social group or a diffusely-bounded social movement held together through shared commitment to a charismatic leader. It upholds a transcendent belief system (often but not always religious in nature) that includes a call for a personal transformation. It also requires a high level of personal commitment from its…

Methods Used to Support a Behavioral-Control System Isolation of the person and manipulation of his or her environment. Control of information going in and out of the group environment. Separation and/or alienation from family and friends. Induced dissociation and other altered states by putting person in mild form of trance (through speaking in tongues, chanting,…

Cultic Techniques for Changing Someone In present-day thought-reform programs, there is an attack on the core self, the person’s central self-image. Attacking the inner person, the self, makes the person feel defective at his or her very core. In groups that use such methods, the motto is, Alter the self or perish. The purpose of…

Eight Psychological Criteria for a Thought-Reform System This list is based on the work of Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., author of Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism (W.W. Norton, 1961). MILIEU CONTROL: The group controls all communication and information, which includes the individual’s communication with him-self. This sets up what Lifton calls Apersonal closure,…

How Cults Manipulate a Person’s Thinking and Behavior Many people who have been subjected to psychological manipulation and control selectively deny aspects of their experience. Some become angry and resistant at the mention of mind control, thought reform, or brainwashing, thinking these things could not possibly have been done to them. It is very threatening…