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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.

2. A cult is any religious group that believes everything they are told without question and
expects the rest of us to do the same. They work toward forcing us all by law to adhere to their
beliefs. A religion binds people through kinship, faith, and action. It does not put one above the
other but enlightens us.

3. I do believe that gangs are a type of cult. It is more common in neighborhoods where the
people network is weak, with few ties among individual residents or between residents and
conventional community institutions. The best predictor of gang membership is the absence of a
positive male role model. Just like cults, gangs control the mindset of their members and without
question the person does what they are told.

4. Stockholm Syndrome:

Stockholm Syndrome is when feelings of trust or affection felt in certain cases of kidnapping or
hostage taking by a victim toward a captor. In other words it is a bond formed by a victim
towards their captor even though there is a threat to life. An example of Stockholm Syndrome is
the Jaycee Duggard story. The kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard occurred on June 10, 1991,
when she was 11 years old. Duggard was abducted from a school bus stop within sight of her
home in South Lake Tahoe, California. She was missing for over 18 years. During their time
together as a family, Dugard presented herself to everyone as the daughter of the Garridos and
described the younger girls as her little sisters (Stockholm syndrome). Her two daughters also
told others she was their older sister. On August 26, 2009, Duggard, her daughters, and Phillip
Craig Garrido appeared in the office of her alleged kidnapper's parole officer in California. Their
unusual behavior sparked an investigation that led to the positive identification of Jaycee Lee
Duggard, living in a tent behind Garrido's home. Phillip Craig Garrido, 58, and his wife Nancy
Garrido, 54, of Antioch, California were arrested for kidnapping and other charges; law
enforcement officers believed Duggard was kept in a concealed area behind Garrido's house in
Antioch for 18 years. During this time Duggard bore two daughters who were aged 11 and 15 at
the time of her reappearance.

5. CULTS!!!:

Children of God
Founder was David Berg. The Family is a high-demand faith group that requires great personal
sacrifice on the part of its members. They emphasize Jesus' teachings against loyalties to one's
family-of-origin. They stress Jesus' preaching in favor of poverty and a simple life. The group
merges traditional Christian beliefs and practices with the belief in universal salvation, contacts
with spirits, communal living, and free love among adults within the group. The roots of The
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Family can be traced back to the counter-culture movement of the late 1960's. Many young
adults, called flower children, or hippies, left the middle-class life of their families of origin and
sought a simpler lifestyle in the form of communal life in southern California. Out of this hippie
movement came a loosely connected group of Evangelical Christian organizations collectively
known as The Jesus People, which were described as "a diverse collection of pastors, street-
preachers, oddballs and intellectuals all trying to communicate the gospel to the counterculture."
The Children of God were founded by one of these individuals. David Berg began his
professional life as an evangelist for the Christian and Missionary Alliance in 1964. He became
the leader of a Teen Challenge chapter in Huntington Beach, CA. in 1967. Teen Challenge was a
youth ministry of the Assemblies of God denomination. He separated the group from the national
Teen Challenge organization in 1968 and renamed it Light Club. Members were called "Light
clubbers." Many flower children were encouraged by rock music and free peanut butter
sandwiches to spend some time in the coffee house. Some evangelized other hippies; a few on a
full time basis. Berg received a "revelation" from God in 1969 that a disastrous earthquake was
about to hit California, and cause part of the state to slide into the ocean. He led the group out of
Huntington Beach to wander throughout the American southwest for 8 months. During that time,
they changed their name to the Children of God. The earthquake never materialized as Berg
prophesied. Also in 1969, David Berg became a polygamist by marrying a second wife, Maria.
He based this decision on passages from the Old Testament which permitted multiple wives. He
received "revelations" from God identifying himself as the "End Time Prophet" who would play
a major role in the Second Coming, the long anticipated return to earth of Jesus Christ. New
members were encouraged to sever all contact with their families of origin, to donate almost their
entire possessions to the group, and become full time evangelists. Their parents were justifiably
concerned about the status, future and safety of their adult children. David Berg, now called
Moses David, first attempted to disperse the membership among many communes (called
colonies) throughout the United States. He later prophesied that a comet would hit the United
States and destroy all life. This motivated the group to organize the "Great Escape", an exodus
whereby almost all of the members left the U.S. and settled in various countries in Europe, South
America, India and Australia. In 1976, Berg encouraged the women members of the group to
engage in "flirty fishing". The term was based on Jesus' injunction "Follow Me, and I will make
you fishers of men," Matthew 4:19. Women members were urged to go into bars and befriend
men. They were expected to seduce potential male converts if necessary to in order to encourage
them towards a religious conversion and membership in the organization. The media had a
feeding frenzy with this innovative form of evangelism, portraying the COG women as "Hookers
for Jesus." In his 1979 annual report, Berg stated that his "FFers" (Flirty Fishers) had "witnessed
to over a quarter of a million souls, loved over 25,000 of them and won about 19,000 to the
Lord." They believe that a person can be saved and spend eternity in heaven if they repent of
their sins and accept Christ as Lord and Savior. But they differ from fundamental Christian
beliefs in that they believe all people will eventually be saved and attain heaven. They believe
sexual enjoyment, from masturbation to intercourse is considered a gift of God. It is an activity
that is to be thoroughly enjoyed as a major focus of one's life. Both male and female Family
members are urged to masturbate while fantasizing about engaging in sexual activity with Jesus.
They embrace free, consensual sexuality as a gift of God.

Human Trafficking
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Human trafficking is the illegal trade in human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery,
commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery. Also recruitment,
transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or
other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a
position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the
consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other
forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery,
servitude or the removal of organs. Sex trafficking victims are generally found in dire
circumstances and easily targeted by traffickers. Individuals, circumstances, and situations
vulnerable to traffickers include homeless individuals, runaway teens, displaced homemakers,
refugees, and drug addicts. While it may seem like trafficked people are the most vulnerable and
powerless minorities in a region, victims are consistently exploited from any ethnic and social
background. Traffickers, also known as pimps or madams, exploit vulnerabilities and lack of
opportunities, while offering promises of marriage, employment, education, and/or an overall
better life. However, in the end, traffickers force the victims to become prostitutes or work in the
sex industry. Various work in the sex industry includes prostitution, dancing in strip clubs,
performing in pornographic films and pornography, and other forms of involuntary servitude.
Human trafficking does not require travel or transport from one location to another, but one form
of sex trafficking involves international agents and brokers who arrange travel and job
placements for women from one country. Women are lured to accompany traffickers based on
promises of lucrative opportunities unachievable in their native country. However, once they
reach their destination, the women discover that they have been deceived and learn the true
nature of the work that they will be expected to do. Most have been told lies regarding the
financial arrangements and conditions of their employment and find themselves in coercive or
abusive situations from which escape is both difficult and dangerous. According to the U.S.
Department of Justice, there were 1,229 human trafficking incidents in the United States from
January 2007- September 2008. Of these, 83 percent were sex trafficking cases. Trafficking of
children is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of children for the
purpose of exploitation. Trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of children can take
many forms and include forcing a child into prostitution or other forms of sexual activity or child
pornography. Child exploitation can also include forced labor or services, slavery or practices
similar to slavery, servitude, the removal of organs, illicit international adoption, trafficking for
early marriage, and recruitment as child soldiers, for use in begging or as athletes, or for
recruitment for cults. Thailand and Brazil are considered to have the worst child sex trafficking
records. Trafficking in children often involves exploitation of the parents' extreme poverty.
Parents may sell children to traffickers in order to pay off debts or gain income, or they may be
deceived concerning the prospects of training and a better life for their children. They may sell
their children for labor, sex trafficking, or illegal adoptions. The adoption process, legal and
illegal, when abused can sometimes result in cases of trafficking of babies and pregnant women,
between the West and the developing world. In David M. Smolin’s papers on child trafficking
and adoption scandals between India and the United States, he presents the systemic
vulnerabilities in the inter-country adoption system that makes adoption scandals predictable.
Thousands of children from Asia, Africa, and South America are sold into the global sex trade
every year. Often they are kidnapped or orphaned, and sometimes they are actually sold by their
own families. In the U.S. Department of Justice 07-08 study, more than 30 percent of the total
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number of trafficking cases for that year were children coerced into the sex industry. Trafficking
victims are also exposed to different psychological problems. They suffer social alienation in the
host and home countries. Stigmatization, social exclusion and intolerance make reintegration into
local communities difficult. The governments offer little assistance and social services to
trafficked victims upon their return. As the victims are also pushed into drug trafficking, many of
them face criminal sanctions.

Hare Krishna

The Hare Krishna cult was established in New York during the 1960s. Its official name is the
International Society for Krishna Conscience (ISKCON). A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada founded ISKCON in 1966 in New York City, NY. The goal of Hare Krishna
members is to reach salvation, which is known as the “Krishna consciousness.” This
consciousness is achieved through ethical living and chanting the Hare Krishna mantra, which
led to their unofficial name. They believe that The idea is that these vices actually create more
stress and anxiety that ultimately blocks the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of a
person. They were often accused of child abuse, false imprisonment, and even brainwashing.
One of these brainwashing accusations made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Krishna is
described as the source of all the avatars. Thus ISKCON devotees worship Krishna as the highest
form of God, svayam bhagavan, and often refer to Him as "the Supreme Personality of
Godhead" in writing, which was a phrase coined by Prabhupada in his books on the subject. To
devotees, Radha represents Krishna's divine female counterpart, the original spiritual potency,
and the embodiment of divine love. The individual soul is an eternal personal identity which
does not ultimately merge into any formless light or void as suggested by the monistic (Advaita)
schools of Hinduism; Prabhupada never declared ISKCON to be a Hindu organisation, because
he considered it to be a 'material designation', not an appropriate name. Prabhupada most
frequently offers Sanatana-dharma and Varnashrama dharma as more accurate names for the
religious system which accepts Vedic authority. It is a monotheistic tradition which has its roots
in the theistic Vedanta traditions.

Elizabeth Smart

The Elizabeth Smart kidnapping occurred on June 5, 2002, when 14-year-old girl Elizabeth
Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City, Utah, bedroom by Brian David Mitchell. Mitchell
led her into the mountains, where he declared her his "wife" and then proceeded to rape her over
the next nine months as they lived in the Utah and California wilderness with his estranged wife,
Wanda Barzee. She was chained to a tree and also forced to watch pornography along with
consuming alcohol and other substances. She was taken across state and feared for her life so
she’d go along with what Mitchell would do. The three were spotted by a motorist in a suburb of
Salt Lake City in March 2003. They would later find out that they have seen Brian David
Mitchell a couple of times before the kidnapping took place. Mitchell had been there plummer.

The Unification Church (The Moonies)

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Sun Myung Moon was born in 1920 in what is now North Korea. At the time, Korea was under
Japanese rule. Moon was raised in the Presbyterian church, one of many faiths persecuted by the
Japanese rulers. The political upheavals caused divisions and new movements in Korean
Christianity, including a group known as "spiritualists" who received new revelations from God
and looked for a Korean messiah. Moon says that on Easter morning at the age of 16, he had a
vision in which Jesus asked him to complete his unfinished work as messiah, which is to bring
the Kingdom of God to mankind and peace on earth. Accepting this call, Moon studied the Bible
and other religious teachings and developed his complex doctrines about God, love, sin and the
means of salvation. Moon began to preach his doctrines in Korea in 1946. Two years later he
was excommunicated by the Presbyterian Church, and shortly thereafter he was imprisoned and
tortured by the North Korean authorities for reasons that are not entirely clear. In 1950 he was
released and fled to South Korea, where in 1954 he founded the Holy Spirit Association for the
Unification of World Christianity, or the Unification Church. One of Moon's early converts
would come to be tremendously influential in the spread of Unificationism in America. Young
Kim, known as Miss Kim, was prone to seeing visions in her youth and came to believe she had
a religious role of importance to fulfill in the world. She was especially interested in the writings
of Emanuel Swedenborg (which influenced New Thought), and even reported receiving visits
from him in visions. Miss Kim met Reverend Moon in 1954, converted to Unificationism, and
became the first missionary of the Unification Church to the United States. She settled in
Eugene, Oregon, in 1959, where she was student at the University of Oregon in order to stay in
the United States. She worked to support her expenses and in her spare time proselytized and
began translating the Divine Principle into English. She gained a few followers, and the group
relocated to San Francisco. The central practice of the Unification Church is the Blessing
Ceremony, popularly known as "mass weddings." The Blessing Ceremony was originally only
for Unification members and for those who were getting married for the first time, usually in a
pairing arranged by the Church. It is now open to people of any faith and those who are already
married, but the majority of participants in the Blessing Ceremony are still members of the
Unification Church and many of the marriages are arranged by the Church along with the
couple's parents. This has been controversial in the West, but is much more common practice in
the East. Reverend Moon encourages international marriages as a means of spreading true
familes, true love and world peace across the planet.

Scientology

Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by L. Ron Hubbard, a science
fiction author. Hubbard characterized Scientology as a religion, and in 1953 integrated the
Church of Scientology in Camden, New Jersey. Scientology claims that its beliefs and practices
are based on rigorous research, and its doctrines are accorded a significance equivalent to that of
scientific laws. Scientology teaches that people are immortal beings who have forgotten their
true nature. Its method of spiritual rehabilitation is a type of counseling known as auditing, in
which practitioners aim to consciously re-experience painful or traumatic events in their past in
order to free themselves of their limiting effects. Scientology teaches that progress on The
Bridge requires and enables the attainment of high moral and ethical standards. Scientology uses
the term "morals" to refer to a collectively agreed code of good conduct and defines ethics as
"the actions an individual take on himself in order to accomplish optimum survival for himself
and others on all dynamics". Scientology stresses the rationality of ethics over morals: "Ethics
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actually consists of rationality toward the highest level of survival."; "If a moral code were
thoroughly reasonable, it could, at the same time, be considered thoroughly ethical. But only at
this highest level could the two be called the same". Scientologists also follow a series of
behavior codes, these are: Auditor's Code, Supervisor's Code, Code of Honor and the Code of a
Scientologist. The purpose of Scientology ethics is to eliminate opponents, and then eliminate
people's interests in things other than Scientology.

6. The common denominators that explain how the leaders of each leaders hold these groups
together were through some of the following techniques: social disruption, isolation and
pressure; self criticism and humiliation; fear, anxiety, and paranoia; and control of information…
in other words MIND CONTROL.