What is a cult

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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

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Characteristics of leader

• Charismatic
• Demanding
• Possibly Abusive
• Controlling
• Only one in contact
  with answers (God)
• Claim Big event
  around corner

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

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

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Well-known Leaders Their Cults

• Rev. Sun Myung Moon-The Unification Church, The
  Moonies
• David Koresh-The Branch Davidians
• Jim Jones-The Peoples Temple
• Shoko Ashara-Aun Shinri Kyo (Sacred Supreme
  Truth)
• Charles Manson-The Manson Family
• Heavens Gate Ron Appelwhite

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Cult Prospects

• People with
• deprived childhoods
• Confusion about religion
• Low and wandering self-esteem
• Searching for new
  identities
• Feel alienated
• failure/personal crisis
• Freshmen/seniors/ Jobless

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Recruitment
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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

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TATICS

• 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

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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 cant be enlightened or saved

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Ways to exit cult

• Deprogramming
• Family Intervention
• Thought Reform
• Exit Counseling
• Run fast