Cult: A group or movement exhibiting great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person,

idea, or thing, and employing unethical manipulative or coercive techniques of persuasion and
control (e.g., isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to
heighten suggestibility or subservience, powerful group pressures, information management,
suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total dependency upon the group
and fear of leaving it), designed to advance the group's leaders, to the actual or possible
detriment of members, their families, or the community.

First, cults lie to and manipulate people — their own members and outsiders — in order to
further their own ends, which are rarely the same as their publicly-stated reasons for existing. A
cult will almost always lie about what they believe when they think you will react negatively to
the information. In a non-cult group/movement, finding out what the group believes is not
difficult — you ask them and they tell you.

A cult will frequently also lie about or avoid discussing how they are organized, who is in
control, and where the money goes. Psychologically abusive groups rarely keep their members
informed about the group's finances, or problems within the group, let alone making this
information public. Members who leave either become non-persons or are demonized. ("Harry
had a bad heart and it finally caught up with him." etc) This goes beyond any normal
organization's hesitation to wash dirty laundry in public — supposedly trusted members often
find out, on leaving, that they knew less about their own group than their family members and
friends did.

Although most outsiders clearly see that a cult members behavior is dishonest, most people in a
cult don't see what they're doing as deceitful. Most abusive cults, justified to themselves lying,
manipulation and breaking the law because they believe they are trying to save people from hell.
In a cult the stakes are high, choices may lead to eternal damnation or eternal bliss, or so they are
told.

DR. ROBERT J. LIFTON: "Any ideology -- that is, any set of emotionally-charged convictions
about men and his relationship to the natural or supernatural world -- may be carried by its
adherents in a totalistic direction. But this is most likely to occur with those ideologies which are
most sweeping in their content and most ambitious or messianic in their claim, whether a
religious or political organization. And where totalism exists, a religion, or a political movement
becomes little more than an exclusive cult."

#1
Cults can occur inside of and outside a 'mainstream' religion (here I take it that the question is
referring to the classical 'cults' whereby strong leaders have control over members of their group,
rather than alternative definitions such as 'personality cults', or 'cults of devotion').

Three ideas seem essential to the concept of a cult.

1. Thinking in terms of us versus them with total alienation from "them."

2. The intense, though often subtle, indoctrination techniques used to recruit and hold members.
3. The charismatic cult leader. Cultism usually involves some sort of belief that outside the cult
all is evil and threatening; inside the cult is the special path to salvation through the cult leader
and his teachings.

The indoctrination techniques include:

Subjection to stress and fatigue;

Social disruption, isolation and pressure;
Self criticism and humiliation;
Fear, anxiety, and paranoia;
Control of information;
Escalating commitment;
Use of auto-hypnosis to induce "peak" experiences

The term 'cult' tends to be used as a term of abuse. As shown above, there are stringent
guidelines for defining whether a body of people (whether religious, lifestyle orientated,
political) are a cult or not.

#2