The following statements, compiled by Dr. Michael Langone, often characterize manipulative groups. Comparing these statements to the group with which you or a family member is involved may help you determine if this involvement is cause for concern.
Place a check mark beside all items that characterize the group in question. If you check many of these items, and particularly if you check most of them, you might consider examining the group more closely.
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*The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
*The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
*The group is preoccupied with making money.
*Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
*Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
*The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel.
*The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader, and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).
*The group has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.
*The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities--a maverick.
*The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group.
*The leadership and its members induce guilt feelings in other members in order to control them.
*Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.
*Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group.
*Members are encouraged or required to socialize only with other group members.
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