Mind-maniplulating groups: Are you or a family member a victim? Reprinted with permission.

OVERVIEW

Deception lies at the core Of mind-manipulating groups. Therefore, many victims of such groups are not fully aware of the extent to which they have been abused and exploited. These victims may be members of religious cults, extremist fundamentalist sects, psychotherapy cults, political cults, or certain large group awareness trainings.

The following statements, compiled by Dr. Michael Langone, editor of Recovery From Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse (W.W. Norton & Company) and editor of Cultic Studies Journal, often characterize such groups. Comparing these statements to the group with which you or a family member is involved may help you determine if this involvement is cause for concern. Place a checkmark beside all items that apply to the group in question. If you check any of these items, and particularly if you check most of them, you might consider examining the group more closely. Keep in mind that this checklist is meant to stimulate thought not "diagnose" groups. More information is available from AFF, P.O. Box 2265, Bonita Springs, FL 34133 (http://www.csj.org; aff@worldnet.att.net).

The list below is derived from clinical experience. A companion checklist, the mathematically derived GPA Scale, will, after AFF has collected sufficient data from it, be able to provide empirical comparisons between groups, or at least between manipulative and non-manipulative groups. Meanwhile, the checklist below may help you focus your possible concerns.

• The group is focused on a living charismatic leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
• The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
• The group is preoccupied with making money.
• Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
• Mind-numbing techniques (for example: meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group or its leader(s).
• The group’s leadership dictates—sometimes in great detail—how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, to change jobs, to get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, how much and what type of makeup to put on, how to discipline children, etc.).
• The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).
• The group has a polarized, "we-they" mentality that causes conflict with the wider society.
• The group’s leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations).
• The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means (for example: collecting money for bogus charities) that members would have considered unethical before joining the group.
• The group’s leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
• Member’s subservience to the group causes to cut ties with family, friends, and personal pre-group goals and interests.
• Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group.
• Members are encouraged or required to live and/to socialize only with other group members.