Hypnosis
Inducing a state of high suggestibility by
hypnosis, often thinly disguised as relaxation or meditation.
Peer Group Pressure
Suppressing doubt and resistance to
new ideas by exploiting the need to belong.
Love Bombing
Creating a sense of family and belonging
through hugging, kissing, touching and flattery.
Rejection of Old Values
Accelerating acceptance of new
life style by constantly denouncing former values and beliefs.
Confusing Doctrine
Encouraging blind acceptance and
rejection of logic through complex lectures on an incomprehensible
doctrine.
Metacommunication
Implanting subliminal messages by
stressing certain key words or phrases in long, confusing lectures.
Removal of Privacy
Achieving loss of ability to evaluate
logically by preventing private contemplation.
Time Sense Deprivation
Destroying ability to evaluate
information, personal reactions, and body functions in relation to passage of
time by removing all clocks and watches.
Disinhibition
Encouraging child-like obedience by
orchestrating child-like behaviour.
Uncompromising Rules
Inducing regression and
disorientation by soliciting agreement to seemingly simple rules which regulate
mealtimes, bathroom breaks and use of medications.
Verbal Abuse
Desensitizing through bombardment with foul
and abusive language.
Sleep Deprivation and Fatigue
Creating disorientation
and vulnerability by prolonging mental an physical activity and withholding
adequate rest and sleep.
Dress Codes
Removing individuality by demanding
conformity to the group dress code.
Chanting and Singing
Eliminating non-cult ideas through
prolonged group repetition of mind-narrowing chants or phrases.
Confession
Encouraging the destruction of individual ego
through confession of personal weaknesses and innermost feelings of doubt.
Financial Commitment
Achieving increased dependence on
the group by burning bridges to the past, through the donation of assets.
Finger Pointing
Creating a false sense of righteousness
by pointing to the shortcomings of the outside world and other cults.
Flaunting Hierarchy
Promoting acceptance of cult
authority by promising advancement, power and salvation.
Isolation
Inducing loss of reality by physical
separation from family, friends, society and rational references.
Controlled Approval
Maintaining vulnerability and
confusion by alternately rewarding and punishing similar actions.
Change of Diet
Creating disorientation and increased
susceptibility to emotional arousal by depriving the nervous system of
necessary nutrients through the use of special diets and/or fasting.
Games
Inducing dependence on the group by introducing
games with obscure rules.
No Questions
Accomplishing automatic acceptance of
beliefs by discouraging questions.
Guilt
Reinforcing the need for salvation by
exaggerating the sins of the former lifestyles.
Fear
Maintaining loyalty and obedience to the group by
threatening soul, life or limb for the slightest negative thought, word or
deed.
Replacement of Relationships
Destroying pre-cult
families by arranging cult marriages and families.
Some of the above techniques used in isolation are not necessarily harmful in and of themselves. However, in a psychologically coercive cult environment, they are usually used en masse, in extreme ways and for prolonged periods of time.