1. The leader is the supreme authority
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You know someone's probably in a cult if they're not permitted to disagree with the leader, even if their opinion is valid. A charismatic leader with a lofty claim to knowledge is the basis of cults. They can refer to themselves as a teacher of wisdom, prophet, messiah, or messenger. Additionally, they can be CEOs, members of the military, politicians, or self-help experts.
2. Disguised exploitation
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In a cult, the head of the organization and the ruling class frequently exploit the members of the group in sexual, economic, and other ways. The degree to which cults are damaging varies, ranging from calls for assault or mass suicide in certain rare and extreme circumstances to labor violations, child abuse, and medical negligence.
3. They got you when you were in a vulnerable place
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There isn't a "clinical" list of precise standards by which one can determine if someone's been indoctrinated. However, a person's "social influences" are frequently what determines a person's susceptibility to mind control. People can be more readily brainwashed if they are in a "vulnerable" stage of life and are coping with emotional or other problems.
4. The leader glorifies themselves
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By promoting a previously unknown revelation, they make themselves to be the supreme authority in the eyes of their adherents. Those leaders also frequently exhibit authoritarianism, charm, and narcissism. They allow no one in the organization to think or reason the revelations they have or had and emphasize certain doctrines that may or may not make sense.
5. Intimidation and fear are used
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The leader is terrified of the "outside world," so threats are made against individuals who want to leave when such is the case. Followers are frequently kept apart from their loved ones. Moreover, the group can even violate moral prohibitions on unethical social behavior and personal property ownership to shame members and their families to stop them from leaving.
6. No skepticism allowed
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Someone's probably in a cult if they can only learn about their group from permitted sources. Critical thinking is actively suppressed in cults because they see it as contagious. Doubting members are urged to cut themselves off from the outside world and dwell completely on the cult's philosophy. Critique is not permitted. People who disagree with the group are considered persecutors and frequently labeled as "anti" or "apostate."
7. They believe they are above the law
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Cult members are frequently persuaded by their leaders to believe they are above the law. There may be no financial oversight, transparency, or accountability in some organizations. Besides, some cults like to challenge the law by purposely doing illegal deeds.
8. You're not allowed to step out of the community
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Many cult-like groups are notorious for enticing members to reject their families and shut off communication with the outside world. If you're certain you're not in an indoctrinated state or a cult, then confirm it to yourself and your family: Take a week off from the community. See if they let you do that.
9. They make you cut ties with your family
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Followers will be instructed to avoid their families if they want to be a member of the cult but their family is not. They'll be advised that because their families don't share the same beliefs, they shouldn't interact with them any longer lest they sway them from the one way to obey God.
10. The group delegitimizes former members
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The cult can't conceive of someone departing with their character intact since it views itself as the final arbiter of truth. It must thus continue to spread the myth that former members were duped, arrogant, immoral, or lazy. Former members are branded as being resentful, angry, dishonest, or evil if they speak out. To humiliate past participants and stop them from spreading the truth to other members, cults frequently enforce some sort of shunning.
11. Different means to weaken the mind are used
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The people's minds will be kept perpetually weakened by incessant preaching, relentless prayer, and lack of sleep. The leader relentlessly exhausts and deprives the followers of sensory input. The group corrects one another using "thought reform" techniques, and the process of "brainwashing" is used to undermine a person's sense of personal identity. Short-hand phrases like "doubt your doubts" are frequently used to discourage followers from thoroughly analyzing difficult subjects.
12. Deceptive recruitment practices
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Getting someone to join a cult usually involves persuading them that they are going to get rewards that they do not now enjoy. Cult recruiters tend to target those who are ostracized by society, have a small social and familial support system, and feel like they don't belong. They are often able to draw individuals in by giving potential members a chance to be a part of something exceptional, whether it be spiritual, materialistic, or social. The organization maintains a low profile, and new recruits aren't informed of the group's true origins.
13. The group is paranoid about the "outside world"
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The person you think about is probably in a cult if the group insists that the end of the world is imminent. Cults present themselves as the only haven from a hostile outside world that wants to destroy them. Catastrophic thinking and persecution phobias are their lifeblood. They are frequently quite active in their recruitment attempts, which are typically rationalized as "saving" individuals from the wicked world in an effort to entice more paying members.
14. Religious exclusivity
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The majority of religious cults seek exclusivity from their followers. Participants in the cult are instructed that the only way to true salvation is through the group's teachings, and therefore, they are not allowed to attend other religious ceremonies.
15. Cartel- or mafia-like structure
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Some of the means cults employ to keep their followers under mafia-like control through behavioral regulation (your personal relationships, diet, wardrobe, etc.), thought control (loaded language, no critical thought, a "us vs. everyone else" mentality), information regulation (leaders fabricate and withhold information deliberately from the members and use propaganda), and emotional control (the cult uses fear of losing salvation, fear of rejection, and so on).
16. Shame cycles are frequent
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If someone depends on their group to make them feel valuable, loved, or sufficient, they are likely part of a cult. By enforcing abnormally strict codes of conduct (typically prescriptions about eating habits, appearance, relationships, and media), guilting members for their failings, and then positioning themselves as the one and only solution to the feelings of remorse that they themselves created, cult leaders, trap members in shame cycles.
17. It's always "the big idea"
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A leader or leaders put forth a new, transcendent concept that promises to be the answer to the world's problems for the vulnerable and alienated. This idea makes grand claims about how it will end all issues, including loneliness, isolation, and feelings of failure. It makes hazy claims about purpose and salvation. The big idea is typically communicated through an enticing leader or a single document written in a secret code.
18. The leader doesn't believe in illegalities
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Someone's most likely in a cult if they're held to a separate moral code, particularly in relation to sex. Cult leaders frequently believe that they are exempt from all laws, whether they be heavenly or human. They are able to sexually and monetarily prey on their followers, thanks to this theory, and when questioned, they refuse to admit their wrongdoing; instead, they come up with excuses. Members frequently undergo sexual grooming.
19. Love bombing
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Cult founders and early adherents attract new members from the general populace by "love bombing" and promising a fresh start, a future of affection, belonging, and redemption inside a real-life group of individuals who all share the same core beliefs. You join the "chosen ones" group to whom "the truth" is disclosed as a new recruit. You are cherished and "saved."
20. Restriction to free information
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Many groups will explicitly tell their members not to look for details regarding the group online. Leaders inform followers that they are "misunderstood" or, more frequently, "under attack" and that anything they discover would only be lies intended to conceal the reality. Being constrained in your ability to acquire news and information on the group is a sign that you are a member of a cult.
21. Secret language of signs and symbols
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New recruits are taught secretive sign and symbol language. They are urged to see themselves as victims of the outside world and are given a choice between being promised rebirth, an entirely new body or identity in this life, or an afterlife. Furthermore, to maintain tight group cohesion, recruits are trained to see the world as either black or white, good or evil, or as either "us or them."
22. The cult is elitist
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Cults believe that they are the organization that has been picked and chosen to change both people's lives and the course of the entire planet. This elitism fosters a stronger sense of group duty and cohesion around a common goal. However, cult leaders frequently abuse this sense of accountability by pressuring followers to engage in dangerous financial activity, sexual favors, unpaid manual work, or increased recruitment attempts to "further the cause."
23. They're pushed to become a recruiter themselves
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Each cult has an "expansion phase" where it turns its attention externally as new members move toward greater devotion. The new assignment is to find more and more people, and members are expected to either fulfill a target or be shamed. They teach them to target the young and the desperate and show them how to love-bomb and promise a better life to outsiders if they join.
24. They have to climb a ladder to find the whole truth
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Members will discover that not all of the facts are being withheld from them in order to keep them actively engaged in their ascent within the group. To come closer to the truth that the group and its leaders claim, one must ascend some type of ladder or hierarchy. Additionally, some groups' members may discover that they will never have access to certain information - particularly women.
25. Hate bombing
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As the cult attains its size limit, issues result from shortcomings in its "plan for everyone." But the group won't accept its faults; instead, it begins to thrive off of resentment for the outer world. It develops hateful rituals and strengthens the "unity of the persecuted." The object of all hatred is often one social class, which may be given a code word. Members are urged to express their animosity through ritualized means.
26. Thrilling witch hunts
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All possible traitors are eliminated through internal tests inside the sect, and doubters are shamed into making untrue accusations against others. The remaining members are coerced into performing personal supplications, which may be sexual in nature, involve body marking, self-mutilation, or a promise to engage in transgressive behavior. Committing little offenses against the despised outside world is a frequent way to gauge one's sense of belonging, but when a member engages in criminal behavior, the cult has proof to use as leverage to coerce compliance.
27. False sense of belonging
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Keep an eye out for the feeling that you have at last found a place where you're experiencing a sense of belonging or a place to call "home." While we are all probably thirsty for something and truly deserve it, a man in the middle of a desert deserves clean water just as much. Still, he shouldn't drink from a contaminated well. You'll live longer if you stay thirsty rather than drink poison.
28. Everything will collapse if the leader isn't there anymore
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There is little question in anyone's mind that the cult in its entirety would collapse if the leader were to leave, pass away, or get into a scandal. Because the "next, next thing" they preached was more of a personality than a genuine goal or movement, those who came in with the aim to be a part of it would get out, never to be seen again.
29. Secret rituals
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Cults have secret teachings or rituals that new followers don't learn about until after joining. Secret rituals are used by cults as rites of passage to strengthen a member's adherence to the group. A recruit is typically only initiated into these ceremonies after passing specific tests or making sufficient financial donations. Cult initiations are frequently perplexing, odd, or even offensive, and new members become even more trapped in a cycle of shame, leaving them open to exploitation.
30. Approved and disapproved reading/watching list
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Keep an eye out for lists of "approved" and "disapproved" readings. You won't be able to consider both sides of an issue if you are forced to read books or watch movies with a single ideological viewpoint as opposed to being allowed to research materials that present opposing viewpoints.