CULTS ENGAGE IN SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES AND HAVE CERTAIN CHARACTERISTICS WHICH ALLOW YOU TO EASILY IDENTIFY THEM

~ It uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members

~ Recruits with deceptive techniques (preferably younger people)

~ Subjects its members to severe mind-control processes* that were first developed in communist countries

~ Controls the person's social and/or physical environment; especially the person's time

~ Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished

~ Destroys the followers' ability to think critically and to make independent decisions

~ Uses a closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure that permits no feedback and refuses to be modified except by leadership approval

~ Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members

~ Social isolation is promoted. Contact with family and friends are abridged, as is contact with persons who do not share group-approved attitudes

~ Economic and other dependence on the group is fostered

~ The group displays unquestioning commitment to its leader and regards his word as law and/or truth

~ The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (i.e. members must get permission to date/marry — or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth). Army Regulations cover almost all of these points...even how to position your body while standing

~ The group has an "us-versus-them" mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society

~ The group teaches or implies that its ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members' participating in activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, murder)

~ Forces a person to choose between cooperating or losing one's income, position, tenure, possibility of advancement or meritorious pay increase (Article 15, Court Martial)

~ Confuses people and wears them down by unpredictable treatment, sometimes harsh and seemingly unfair and arbitrary, and at other times friendly, fair-minded, and conciliatory. This kind of manipulation produces anxiety, dread, and guilt, as well as confusion about what to think and how to act

~ Daily repetitious lecturing and instruction along a certain line of thinking, behaving, and being. If you go along with the "party line", you are rewarded and if you don't, you are punished

~ Emotional stress, shock, or desensitization, to break down both intellectual and emotional resistance

~ Isolation, whether physical or emotional, from familiar sources of emotional support in resistance

~ Stripping the individual of normal defenses, such as reserve, dignity, a sense of privacy, or the ability to decline to participate

~ Rewarding the acceptance of new attitudes, values, and beliefs - a reward which can simply be a release from pressures inflicted on those who resist

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