Nevermo, living in large Mormon community. Wanting to be sensitive to religions although I identify as agnostic at the moment, I cringe when I think about calling them a cult. I get it. I'm an outsider. But even some nevermos agree the church has Some positive points. I just wanted to know how you were defining the faith as a cult during your experiences.

Thank you

The only way you can be saved is by giving the Mormon cult 10% of your income but you will never be able to see how that money is spent.

Cult.Cult.Cult.

Don't cults typically want ALL one's income, not just 10%?

Unless it's the 100% a mishie would be earning for the two years he's slaving for the morg.

http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_q0.html

Why be sensitive to religions? You can be sensitive to people, but a religion is just an idea.

Except to mormons, for whom it is a CULTure.

The definition for cult doesn't include any "positives" or "negatives" in an organization. An organization might be purely positive, yet still be a cult.

There is a fairly large list of similarities that all cults have. Things such as brainwashing or groupthink, ridiculously long hours proseletyzing or working, or outright religious exodus from a country or an area.

Take the moonies, a pretty well established cult. Their members work 10-12 hours a day, almost never sleep, and constantly attend indoctrination meetings and have a very integral community presence to keep everybody indoctrinated.

Jim Jones' little cult had many of the same features.

Early Mormonism fits the profile of a cult exactly. There is almost no difference between Joseph Smith's group and Jim Jones' group. The resemblance is eerie.

Modern day Mormonism has some similarities with many cults both past and present, but there are huge differences too. Most cult experts don't consider Mormonism a cult.

All the books I've read on religions and cults say Mormonism is a cult. As a matter of fact,Mormonism is the first religion listed,and always the longest in talking about.

Very few books on cults that I have read refer to the mainstream religion as a cult and only some of them even talk about it. When they do talk about it, they almost always identify fringe Mormon groups and the early church started by Joseph Smith as both being cult entities.

A cult, for me, is defined as having a leader with so much power that if he or she said drink the grape Koolaid, there would be many who would actually drink it.

Right down to the secret handshakes and magic underwear. If the Church told my TBM family to go down to the airport to sell beads and play the tambourine, they'd ask if they can also shave their heads to be extra righteous.

I may have to use that as a quote, Makurosu.

So many academic "cult" experts have their heads up their asses on this question, not wanting to offend anyone, that one doesn't know where to begin. No one wants to make any decisive judgments from the ivory tower, especially of organizations that have amassed real power.

As a converted Mormon (plus nine years now), my opinion is that “the Church”–such is how it is called by its “members,” itself another common appellation among the LDS to refer to those on the rolls of the Church–is cultish at the least. Therapists who work to deprogram people from cults will use a scale of destructiveness of the cult. Another key idea is how much distortion of the truth the group engages in and how much they have to deceive new recruits ("milk before meat") to get them to go along in a staged or tactically planned conversion process.

Note: Jan Shipps, one of the foremost non-LDS historians of the LDS Church, also refers to it in its origins as a “cult” (Shipps, Mormonism, pp. 47-51). Unfortunately, Shipps’ definition of “cult” is entirely academic, sociological, and external ("objective"): She sees successful cults as those that develop and become dominant or mainstream traditions, a fate she sees as shared by the LDS Church because it merely moved beyond a certain number of members or lasted a certain number of years. Thus she refuses to judge her subject and proceeds with her narrative with archival pleasure and ambition.

However, living the faith is another matter: The prospect of living in a “part-member” family really brings the cultish character of the faith into relief, and its destructiveness too as families are often destroyed in that process. If children are involved, then one parent not being “active,” i.e., going to church regularly, can easily end a marriage and divide a family. (This seems more destructive to me than what one finds in mainstream religions.) The whole emphasis on being “sealed for all time and eternity” to one’s spouse and children, and the heavy indoctrination of youth through all manner of expected activities outside of the three regular Sunday church hours, lends great force to the bind that the Church keeps “weak” members in (those in need of “strengthening”): to split from the Church creates a serious threat to one’s family and great psychological and emotional pain and confusion to one’s children for not having a parent of “integrity” who has "character" (I’m quoting all the buzz words here.) For example, from ages 14 to 18 good Mormon youth go to Seminary class five days a week during the school year.

Add to this family-based emotional blackmail (seriously question the church's doctrines and you very much risk losing your family) the expected annual “tithing settlement” with the Bishop (he–always he–is like the head preacher of a given “ward” or church community–usually numbering from 300-400 active people). One must go with one’s family to answer the Bishop’s question, “Do you pay a full tithe?” As invasive as this may sound to mainstream protestants, this “interview” setting is quite common in the Church, extending to regular “worthiness” or “Temple interviews" with youth and adults where questions about your sexual practices and your commitment to the prophet and the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith are asked. Waywardness is watched for vigilantly, and to me this seems cultish. In fact, now the Church puts barcodes on “Temple recommends” and the Bishop of each ward gets a weekly report of who in the ward has been faithful in going to the Temple (another expected outside-regular-Sunday-Church-meeting activity of “faithful,” “valiant,” “worthy,” “active members”).

Connected to “Temple worthiness” (imagine being a member of a church where you are formally considered a less worthy member than someone else), there also are levels of acceptance and prestige in the Church as well: If one has a genealogy that goes back to the original members of the Church (1830s), that is quite special. If one has ancestors who were part of the 19th century “Pioneers” who traveled across the US to Utah, then one is certainly pedigreed. Being a relative of one of the Church leaders in Salt Lake is certainly a way into the Church aristocracy, and there are various other ways to ascend in this informal Church hierarchy, including perhaps most importantly the attending of BYU or one of its satellite campuses in Idaho or Hawaii. Going on a two-year mission between ages 18 and 26 is nearly mandatory if one wants to be a good member of the church with a better chance of advancement in the church hierarchy.

I don’t have time presently to talk about the importance of “sacrifice” and “service” in the Church. Suffice to say that the emphasis on these can be quite overwhelming in terms of (voluntary) time commitments from the faithful. One starts to get allergic to when one's phone rings because some leader might be asking you to drop everything to help someone move, or give someone a blessing, or to ask you give a talk, or to schedule you for an interview, etc.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2011 07:32PM by derrida.

Many churches are overseen and run by rank and file members who listen and try to fulfill the needs of individuals. So if a church program isn't popular and isn't helpful, it can be adjusted or scraped in favor of whatever members want.

In the mormon church and other cults, the effort is primarily to contribute to and worship the organization. Individuals can be maginalized or crushed if they don't fit the expectations or can't contribute to the organization's image and agenda.

I really like Mak, Derrida's and Cheryl's observations here on this point.

Another well-respected source referred to often on this Board is Psychologist and noted cult-expert for the APA Steven Hassan.

Hassan has described distinct existential patterns that tend to prevail in definitional CULT organizations where extreme double messaging and psychological coercion is commonly found:

I. Organizational Behavior Management Characteristics

1. Regulation of individual's physical reality
a. Where, how and with whom the member lives and associates with
b. What clothes, colors, hairstyles the person wears
c. What food the person eats, drinks, adopts, and rejects
d. How much sleep the person is able to have
e. If the person has independent financial dependence
f. Little or no time spent on leisure, entertainment, vacations
2. Major time commitment required for organizational sessions and group rituals
3. The need to ask permission for major decisions
4. The need to report thoughts, feelings and activities to superiors
5. Rewards and punishments (behavior modification techniques- positive and negative).
6. Individualism discouraged; group think prevails
7. Rigid rules and regulations
8. Need for obedience and dependency

II. Organizational Information Management Characteristics

1. The use of deception
a. Deliberately holding back information, especially to newcomers
b. Distorting information to make it acceptable
c. Outright lying
2. Access to non-organizational contrarian sources of information is minimized or discouraged
a. Books, articles, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio
b. Information critical of the organization
c. Former members
d. Keep members so busy they don't have time to think
3. Compartmentalization of information; Outsider vs. Insider doctrines
a. Information is not freely accessible
b. Information varies at different levels and missions within group
c. Leadership decides who "needs to know" what information
4. Spying on other members is encouraged
a. Pairing up with "buddy" system to monitor members
b. Reporting deviant thoughts, feelings, and actions to leadership
5. Extensive use of organization generated information and propaganda
a. Newsletters, magazines, journals, audio tapes, videotapes, etc.
b. Misquotations, statements taken out of context from non-group sources
6. Unethical use of confession
a. Information about "sins" used to destroy individual identity boundaries
b. Past "sins" used to manipulate and control; no forgiveness or absolution

III. Organizational Thought Management Characteristics

1. Need to internalize the group's doctrine as "Truth"
a. Group Reality Map = Actual Universal Reality
b. Black and White thinking
c. Good vs. evil
d. Us vs. them (insiders vs. outsiders)
2. Adopt "loaded" language (characterized by "thought-terminating clichés”). Words are the tools we use to think with. These "special" words constrict rather than expand understanding. They function to reduce complexities of experience into trite, platitudinous "buzz words".
3. Only "good" and "proper" thoughts are encouraged.
4. Thought-stopping techniques (to shut down "reality testing" by stopping "negative" thoughts and allowing only "good" thoughts); rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism.
a. Denial, rationalization, justification, wishful thinking
b. Chanting
c. Meditating
d. Praying
e. Speaking in "tongues"
f. Singing or humming
5. No critical questions about leaders, doctrine, or policy seen as legitimate
6. No alternative belief systems viewed as legitimate, good, or useful

IV. Organizational Emotional Management Characteristics

1. Manipulate and narrow the range of a person's feelings.
2. Make the person feel like if there are ever any problems it is always their fault, never the leader's or the group's fault.
3. Excessive use of guilt.
a. Identity guilt
i. Who you are (not living up to your potential)
ii. Your family
iii. Your past
iv. Your affiliations
v. Your thoughts, feelings, actions
b. Social guilt
c. Historical guilt
4. Excessive use of fear.
a. Fear of thinking independently
b. Fear of the "outside" world
c. Fear of group enemies
d. Fear of losing one's group status or "salvation"
e. Fear of leaving the group or being shunned by group
f. Fear of disapproval
5. Extremes of emotional highs and lows.
6. Ritual and often public confession of "sins."
7. Phobia indoctrination: programming of irrational fears of ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader's authority. The person cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group.
a. No happiness or fulfillment "outside" of the group
b. Terrible consequences will take place if you leave: “financial ruin;” “abandonment;”; "hell;" "demon possession;" "incurable diseases;" "accidents;" "suicide;" "insanity;" etc.
c. Shunning of leave takers. Fear of being rejected by friends, peers, and family.
d. Never a legitimate reason to leave. From the group's perspective, people who leave are: "weak;" "undisciplined;" "unspiritual;" "worldly;" "brainwashed by family, counselors, enemies;" “seduced by money, sex, pride, rock and roll.”

It is pretty obvious to even TBMs (and to any thinking person) that the organizational descriptions above are clearly descriptive of the common patterns found in lds church culture and institutional practice. There are not merely one or two statements above that apply, but clearly the vast majority of the characteristics listed are right-on-the-money. I guarantee that we could start a thread on nearly every point and LIST the examples.

According to Dr. Hassan:

"Characteristics of cults can be understood in terms of four basic components, which form the acronym BITE:

I. Behavior Control
II. Thought Control
III. Information Control
IV. Emotional Control

It is important to understand that destructive mind control can be determined when the overall effect of these four components promotes irrational dependency and obedience to some leader or cause. Mind controlled cult members can often live in their own homes, have nine-to-five jobs, be married with children, hold responsible and important positions in non-cult settings, function well and exhibit excellent critical thinking skills in most areas of their lives, and still be unable to think for themselves and act independently in regards to the influence of the cult—which has, as its central goal, the object of controlling the behavior, thoughts and emotions of the cult members."

IMHO The overarching and unrelenting goal of mormonism is CONTROL OF PEOPLE AND THOUGHTS. Not righteousness, not honesty, not charity, not community, not personal or spiritual development, not Christ and not happiness.

It is quite clear that EVEN THE CHURCH ITSELF, its teachings, structure, history, practices, doctrine and principles are readily abandoned and or changed at will if the lds church thinks it can increase and extend its control by doing so.

The lds church would like to be portrayed as a mainstream christian religion. It is not. It is a cult pure and simple. Though we may certainly note that individuals in TSCC are victims and should be treated with respect and compassion, the lds cult a christian Taliban that deserves no sensitivity or respect from anyone or from any benevolent religion with benign personal or spiritual development goals.

The two traditional phrases mormons use for the the lies they tell are "lying for the Lord," and giving "milk before meat." The milk/meat reference describes how mormons sell the soft friendly side of the cult and withhold the heavy duty cuitshness until a member is well indoctrinated and under full control of the leadership.

rodolfo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I really like Mak, Derrida's and Cheryl's
> observations here on this point.
>
> Another well-respected source referred to often on
> this Board is Psychologist and noted cult-expert
> for the APA Steven Hassan.
>
Steven Hassan is not a psychologist. He holds an MEd, a Masters in Counseling Psychology and is licensed as a mental health counselor, not a psychologist. To call oneself a psychologist, a person must hold a PhD or PsyD in Psychology and Mr. Hassan does not. Additionally he is not a "cult expert for the APA". Mr. Hassan has presented at APA conferences but he does not represent the APA as an "expert" as your statement implies. Please be careful in the way you represent his credentials as this could potentially be misleading to people.

Noted, thanks. These details were not listed in my source material.

Below is a summary list of criteria which denote a cult. This is from the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA)

1. The group is focused on a leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment. Typically, the leader is alive, but in some cases may be deceased, but his or her “message” (belief system, ideology, touted practices) is still upheld as the Truth, as law.
2. ‪Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
3. ‪Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
4. ‪The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry; leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).
5. ‪The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar; the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).
6. ‪The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.
7. ‪The leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders, and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).
8. ‪The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify the means (what members are expected to do). This may result in members participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, lying to family or friends, collecting money for bogus charities).
9. ‪The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in members in order to influence and control them. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.
10. ‪Subservience to the leader/group results in members cutting ties with family, friends, and radically altering personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.
11. ‪The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
12. ‪The group is preoccupied with making money.
13. ‪Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.
14. ‪Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
15. ‪The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group, believing there is no other way to be, and often fearing reprisals to self or others if they leave or even consider leaving the group.


This checklist will be published in the new book, Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich and Madeleine Tobias (Berkeley: Bay Tree Publishing, 2006). It was adapted from a checklist originally developed by Michael Langone.

Michael D. Langone, Ph.D., a counseling psychologist, is ICSA’s Executive Director. He was the founder editor of Cultic Studies Journal (CSJ), the editor of CSJ’s successor, Cultic Studies Review, and editor of Recovery From Cults. He is co-author of Cults: What Parents Should Know and Satanism and Occult-Related Violence: What You Should Know. Dr. Langone has spoken and written widely about cults. In 1995, he received the Leo J. Ryan Award from the "original" Cult Awareness network and was honored as the Albert V. Danielsen visiting Scholar at Boston University.

IMO Mormonism fits really well.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2011 08:17PM by Jim Huston.

Brilliant - archiving this list as well, thanks. This is a 2006 publication??



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2011 08:28PM by rodolfo.

It is in the publication. It has also been published in the Cultic Studies Journal and a number of other places. I haven't been around for the past several years, so I don't know all of the places it is currently being published.

When I matched Mormonism to some of the cult definitions as noted above, I felt that there was about eighty percent in common between Mormon practices and cult definitions. The church has eased a couple of things here and there over the years, but eighty percent is still a passing grade.

If you look at the treatment of Missionaries and Missionary work, I think you will find they are pretty much 100%.

Any cult attribute not evident among wardmembers is alive and well among missionaries.

Missionaries will work anywhere from 50-80 hours a week. Moonies will work 100+ hours a week. Jim Jones' folks were "building" their kingdom at about the same rate.

Missionaries are told to get 8 hours of sleep. Moonies get about 3-4 hours of sleep.

Missionaries can email home. Moonies are cut off.

Pretty much every organization labeled "cult" by the experts follows the exact same trends. Mormonism just doesn't make the cut.

Edit: Also, sorry if I seem hostile. By no means am I trying to stick my finger in your eye and cause a fight :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2011 12:07AM by snb.

I'm not familiar with Moonies, do they have:
-secret handshakes?
-secret new names?
-secret oaths?
-buildings that you can only enter if you are giving them money?
-special underwear with secret markings on them that have to be burned when disposing of the underwear?

So are you saying that because Moonies are a more abusive cult (allegedly) than Mormons it excludes not-as-bad Mormonism from cult status? Wouldn't that mean there could be only one true cult and that would be the one that was most abusive?

Where do you get your information about how many hours ALL Mormon missionaries and ALL Moonies work? If you served a mission, you know how many hours YOU put in as a missionary but not how many hours ALL missionaries put in. If you've read any of the missionary threads on the board, tyrannical mission presidents are free to up the abuse ante and some do.

As far as missionaries being "allowed" to send e-mail home, the last I knew, missionaries' e-mail messages were monitored. That's not cult-y at all.

Some mission presidents confiscate passports. Kind of puts a crimp in one's travel plans if a missionary wants to escape, eh? I guess because the mission president doesn't send assassins after the escapees a la Jim Jones, we can conclude Mormonism isn't a cult because Jim Jones was a lot worse.

If you read any of the lists provided on this thread, Mormonism makes the cult-cut easily and repeatedly

If you don't want to believe Mormonism is a cult, you are entitled to your opinion and analysis but minimizing the cult-y characteristics of Mormonism because other cults one-up them in batshit crazy behaviors doesn't exclude Mormonism from the cult club.

I probably shouldn't post after being startled out of a sound sleep at 4:30 a.m. by a wrong-number call, so my apologies if my reply sounds totally snotty. I do respect your right to interpret the information you've gathered or situations you've personally experienced and draw your own conclusions.

No, my information is not anecdotal. Sorry you feel that it is.

Also, no worries about sounding snotty :)

Also, as others have noted, much of the qualifying non-cultish elements have been reduced or eliminated, such as spontaneous ward parties or dances or road shows, etc. Also much of the individuality that used to prevail across TSCC has been "correlated" away, increasing the overall organizational cult dysfunction, IMO.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2011 09:30PM by rodolfo.

... you call it what it is.

Timothy

snb stated about the Moonies, "Their members work 10-12 hours a day, almost never sleep, and constantly attend indoctrination meetings and have a very integral community presence to keep everybody indoctrinated."

The Cult members that are on a mission are told what they should be doing 24/7, with no time to think about anything but the Cult. Even in their spare time they are to spend reading the BOM or other church material.

It comes up often on this board of someone asking why the Cult continues the Missionary program, when they get view converts. As is usually stated, the purpose of the Missionary Program is to indoctrinate the missionary to a lifetime of service, and more important, giving $$$$$$$$ to the Cult. Anyone they happen to convert is a just a bonus.

The mission is very similar to what some people "normally" think of as Cults. What a missionary goes through is virtually the same as what a new member of the Moonies or Hari-Krishnas goes through. The members are cut off from all family contact. It used to be two phone calls a year and letters, but now they allow e-mail. It's "supposed" to go through the church e-mail (and not hotmail or yahoo as many use), so the church can filter them for keywords to know when a member may have "problems."

They always have their companion with them, and are to never be alone.

They are told when to sleep, eat, tract, and any "free" time is supposed to be reading about the Cult.

The Cult missionaries are trying to get more members to join the Cult by telling people how good it is, either hanging out in pubic places or accosting strangers on the sidewalk (no different from Hari-Krisha or Moonies), or knocking on their doors.

They are told what to wear, and have to wear the Cult uniform all the time.

They are stripped of their identity (their first name) and given a new name that is the only one they are to use. They call each other "Elder .....," even their companion that are attached to at the hip 24/7.

The missionary programing (brain-washing) that the Mormon Cult uses is no different than what the Moonies and Hari-Krishnas go through.

Missionaries don't work nearly as hard as moonies do, and they sleep a LOT more. Moonies go through a lot more brainwashing and psychological breakdowns than your average Mormon missionary.

There is a comparison, but the degree of crazy is vastly different.

I'm not saying that missionary work is good, just that if you look at the two things critically, you see a difference.

they know that they will be able to get more done during the day. 3-4 hours of sleep would just lead to a lot of medical bills. Just because the mormon cult is a smarter cult doesn't mean they aren' t a cult.

Saying that they are smarter is crossing over the line :)

What's amazing is that any young men and women actually leave their missions or become disaffected during them.

I'm not sure what a cult is. I suppose I just assume it's like art; know one when you see one.

Not a Mormon and never have been, but just recently had an exchange on a local newspaper message board with several Mormons. I'd never really thought about the Mormons much, despite Marie Osmond being my first crush. I always assumed it was just another Christian denomination. Then the topic of Mormonism came up on that local paper message board. What I heard - mostly from a former Mormon who was then soundly cyber-beaten up by active Mormons - was troubling enough for me to continue poking around the web, which brought me to this site.

Anyway, I've read here on the numbered discussions about how missionaries are told to "lie for God." It seemed several Mormons I encountered were likewise lying to me (granted, I'm probably not in a position of knowledge to say for sure, but I think I know when someone is trying to tell me up is down). The topic that I believe I was lied to about was Mormon doctrine on whether God was originally a man, and whether man can someday ascend to the level of another god.

I'd say telling people they should "lie for God" is characteristic of a cult.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2011 12:31AM by paulrc.

well said. great food for thought. The milk sweet but the meat
is rotten to the core. Its a suttle brainwashing cult that
can suck in the most sincere people on earth and turn them
into snobs, that they even turn against their own family
or relations who are not members of the church sooner or later..

Levite.

Well you have exceeded my hopes for the number of responses! Thank you for all the information and your time.

"...if you believe in it, it is a religion or perhaps THE religion;
if you do not care one way or another about it, it is a sect;
but if you fear and hate it, it is a cult." Leo Pfeffer