1.

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 member’s 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.

2. 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;

#1
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.

3. Gangs are more prevalent in neighborhoods where the community network is weak, with few
ties among individual residents or between residents and conventional community institutions.
Among adolescent males, the best predictor of gang membership is the absence of a positive
male role model. Most girls who participate in gang activity have run away from home at least
once due to family problems including the drug addiction and/or arrest of a parent.

Gang violence has reached a crisis level in the United States. A 1998 study revealed that gang
members possess significantly more guns than other at-risk youth. The ready availability of such
deadly weapons has led to an increase in violence such as drive-by shootings and a loss of life
among gang members and others caught in the crossfire. Research reported in 1991 found that
gang access to firearms "led to lethal violence in circumstances that might otherwise have been
settled with less-than lethal means." Gang culture increasingly involves its youth membership in
the use of weapons, drugs, and criminal activity.

4. Stockholm Syndrome:

The Oxford Dictionary defines Stockholm Syndrome as “feelings of trust or affection felt in
certain cases of kidnapping or hostage taking by a victim toward a captor”.10 This definition
addresses the main characteristics of the phenomenon: a positive bond formed by the victim
towards his captor even though there is a threat to life. The FBI formulates the definition slightly
more detailed and describes Stockholm Syndrome as “a paradoxical psychological phenomenon
wherein a positive bond between hostage and captor occurs that appears irrational in the light of
the frightening ordeal endured by the victims”.1

#2