ROTFLMAO! A bankrupt jewish nutcase is your so called “expert”?
More, what you claim as a list bears little resemblance to what real pros use:
To wit:
Lifton details eight characteristics that typify a destructive group environment: dictating with whom members can communicate; convincing members they are a chosen people with a higher purpose; creating an us-versus-them mentality, whereby everything in the group is right and everything outside is wrong; encouraging members to share their innermost secrets and then purge whatever hinders their merging with the group; convincing members that their philosophical belief system is ‘the absolute truth’; creating an ‘in’ language of buzzwords and groupspeak which becomes a substitute for critical thinking; reinterpreting human experience and emotion in terms of the group’s doctrine; and reinforcing the idea that life within the group is good and worthy, and life outside evil and pointless.
Looney and dishonest. Sad.
The lists of what to watch for to identify cults is not restriced to those examples I gave you. And why am I not surprised that you need to discrdit any source?
An appropriate description of a cult is “a religious group originating as a heretical sect and maintaining fervent commitment to heresy.”…http://www.equip.org/articles/is-catholicism-a-cult/along with..
"Cults are usually formed, molded, and controlled by a single individual or small group."
Then, of course, we must have Dr. Phil:
If you suspect a loved one has been influenced by an extreme group, Dr. Frank Lawlis, chairman of the Dr. Phil Advisory Board, offers the following warning signs:1. Loss of humor
2. Judgmental attitude toward family members, especially authority
3. Self-imposed isolation
4. Lack of interest in typical activities
5. Talk centered around issues of intense consequences and values, trying to convert family to extreme positions, especially related to the Bible
6. Pressuring others for money for "group missions"
7. Dropping current educational or vocation plans to devote toward group mission
8. Failing grades
9. Breaking contact with friends
10. No longer attends family traditions
11. Moves out to "group home"
12. Losing weight
13. Less time spent at home or with usual friends
14. Flat affect, fatigue
15. Shows rigid reasoning