"Parallels Between Destructive Cults and Controlling Families" by Pezhman

On Aug 15th, I had a post about controlling parents and manipulations of feelings, behavior, thinking, relationships and identity and sense of self. I referenced to the book "If You Had Controlling Parents" by Dan Neuhart, Ph.D. On pages 100-102 of the book, in a table, he compares the similarity between a destructive cult and controlling parents side by side. In my previous post, I brought half of the table, which was about how controlling parents manipulate their children. In this post you see how destructive cults manipulate their members;

1. Manipulations of Feelings
- Cults give members approval alternating with appeals to fear and guilt
- Leaders ridicule members’ emotions that conflict with cult goals while rewarding members’ emotions that support cult goals

2. Manipulations of Behavior
- Behavior is rigidly proscribed through control of sleep, diet, privacy, dress, access to information, activities, and relationships
- Sensory overload (chanting, singing, meditation, lectures, speaking in tongues and/or testimonials) dulls members’ senses
- Cults encourage members to call on one another
- Cults stress compliance to cult rules and rituals that, no matter how mundane or odd, must be followed to the letter
- Questions are shamed or avoided and the focus turned on the questioner

3. Manipulations of Thinking
- Cults profess freedom and openness but foster dependence, restricted information, and lack of intellectual rigor
- Cult credo and needs supersede individual needs or desires
- Black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking pervades
- Cult credo generally cannot be explained or disproved and is said to be fully understood only by a select few

4. Manipulations of Relationships
- Cult provides “instant intimacy” at the price of insisting that members reveal innermost thoughts, feelings, and habits
- Relationship with outsiders are discouraged by fostering an “Us vs. Them” mentality
- Members forfeit financial, social and emotional resources and give cult leaders the right to make personal decisions for them
- Leaders are seen as possessing unique goodness and lacking faults or insecurities
- Leaders are accorded special rights, privileges and living conditions
- Leaders demand that members follow grandiose schemes as a test of loyalty

5. Manipulations of Identity and Sense of Self
- Happiness is seen as flowing from the group and leader while unhappiness is seen as flowing from within members
- Actions that distance members from the cult bring pain while actions that move members closer to the cult bring pleasure
- Leaders act as sole judge of worth, truth and behavior, with the right to punish and reward