Mind-Manipulating Groups: Are You or a Family Member a Victim? 

The following statements, compiled by AFF’s Executive Director, 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.  Check 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.  Keep in mind that this checklist is meant to stimulate thought, not “diagnose” groups.

·         The group is focused on a living charismatic 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 (for example: certain misuses of meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group or its leader(s). 

·         The group’s 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(s), 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, “we-they” mentality that causes conflict with the wider society. 

·         The group’s leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, clergy with mainstream denominations). 

·         The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means (for example: collecting money for bogus charities) that members would have considered unethical before joining.

·         The group’s leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.

·         Members’ subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family, friends, and personal pre-group goals and interests.  

·         Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group. 

·         Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.