Cult Recovery Resources

What is a cult?

Definition by Dr. Janja Lalich

"A cult can be either a sharply-bounded social group or a diffusely-bounded social movement held together through shared commitment to a charismatic leader. It upholds a transcendent belief system (often but not always religious in nature) that includes a call for a personal transformation. It also requires a high level of personal commitment from its members in words and deeds. This definition is not meant to be evaluative in the sense of implying that a group is good, bad, benign, or harmful. Rather it is meant to convey a systemic view of such a group, which is comprised of a charismatic relationship, a promise of fulfillment, and a methodology by which to achieve it. Cults differ in their specific ruling ideologies and in their specific requirements, practices, and behaviors; a single group may even differ over its lifetime or across different locations. These groups exist on a continuum of influence (regarding a particular group’s effect on its members and on society, and vice versa) and a continuum of control (from less invasive to all-encompassing).

Cults can be distinguished from other non-mainstream groups—for example, religious or political sects, fringe or alternative groups or movements, communes and intentional communities—because of their intense ideologies and their demand for total commitment from at least some of the members. Each group must be observed and judged on its own merits and its own practices and behaviors as to whether it falls within this category type, which is not meant to be dismissive or one-sided. Cults are frequently totalistic and separatist. Some cults are totalistic when they are exclusive in their ideology (sacred, the only way) and impose upon their members systems of social control that are confining and all-inclusive (encompassing all aspects of life). Some cults are separatist when they promote withdrawal from the larger society."

- Bounded Choice by Dr. Janja Lalich

Definition by Louis West and Michael Langone

​"A group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion to some person, idea, or thing, and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (such as: isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgement, promotion of total dependency on the group in fear of leaving it), designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community." - Louis West and Michael Langone

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Photos from Take Back Your Life by Janja Lalich

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