What makes a cult?

[Geneviev]

This thread is based on a discussion of the BITE model by Steven Hassan that occurred in TET. The BITE model is a definition of what makes a cult, and is an acronym for behavior control, information control, thought control, and emotion control. A more detailed BITE model is here. This model is used by people interested in identifying cults.

However, Steven Hassan is not necessarily the most reliable person. In sources such as this, this, or this, he is criticized for things that include ethical violations and dishonesty. Because Steven Hassan may not be a good source of information about cults, other models can be necessary to define them.

So, NSG, what makes a cult? Do you use the BITE model or something else?

I do not trust the BITE model as a definition for what makes a cult because it can name ordinary and non-harmful groups and religions as cults and does not use scientific evidence. Instead, I believe that cults control every aspect of people's lives and cause either physical or emotional harm.

[Xmara]

This thread is based on a discussion of the BITE model by Steven Hassan that occurred in TET. The BITE model is a definition of what makes a cult, and is an acronym for behavior control, information control, thought control, and emotion control. A more detailed BITE model is here. This model is used by people interested in identifying cults.

However, Steven Hassan is not necessarily the most reliable person. In sources such as this, this, or this, he is criticized for things that include ethical violations and dishonesty. Because Steven Hassan may not be a good source of information about cults, other models can be necessary to define them.

So, NSG, what makes a cult? Do you use the BITE model or something else?

I do not trust the BITE model as a definition for what makes a cult because it can name ordinary and non-harmful groups and religions as cults and does not use scientific evidence. Instead, I believe that cults control every aspect of people's lives and cause either physical or emotional harm.

The BITE guidelines aren’t absolute. If a group meets maybe just one or two of those criteria, then it’s not a cult. It’s when the group meets a large number of those criteria that it becomes suspect. I do not think that any ordinary, harmless group meets enough of those criteria to be classified as a cult.

I think they’re mostly accurate. A few minor tweaks could be made, but I think it works.

EDIT: Upon reviewing the guidelines, I’ve realized that BITE can be used to assess unhealthy relationships as well as potential cults.

[Geneviev]

This thread is based on a discussion of the BITE model by Steven Hassan that occurred in TET. The BITE model is a definition of what makes a cult, and is an acronym for behavior control, information control, thought control, and emotion control. A more detailed BITE model is here. This model is used by people interested in identifying cults.

However, Steven Hassan is not necessarily the most reliable person. In sources such as this, this, or this, he is criticized for things that include ethical violations and dishonesty. Because Steven Hassan may not be a good source of information about cults, other models can be necessary to define them.

So, NSG, what makes a cult? Do you use the BITE model or something else?

I do not trust the BITE model as a definition for what makes a cult because it can name ordinary and non-harmful groups and religions as cults and does not use scientific evidence. Instead, I believe that cults control every aspect of people's lives and cause either physical or emotional harm.

The BITE guidelines aren’t absolute. If a group meets maybe just one or two of those criteria, then it’s not a cult. It’s when the group meets a large number of those criteria that it becomes suspect. I do not think that any ordinary, harmless group meets enough of those criteria to be classified as a cult.

I think they’re mostly accurate. A few minor tweaks could be made, but I think it works.

EDIT: Upon reviewing the guidelines, I’ve realized that BITE can be used to assess unhealthy relationships as well as potential cults.

Many of the criteria are common to religion, at least Christianity, so it can easily lead to an ordinary church being labeled as a cult.

[The Free Joy State]

I would say the BITE model is accurate. It can easily be seen in practise when you look at high-pressure cultic groups (the JWs, the Family International, the Scientologists). The BITE model follows after Lifton's Eight Criteria for Thought Reform and Margaret Singer's excellent research Cults in Our Midst (I recommend you track that book down and give it a read; it's ground-breaking).

In many ways, it's similar to Lifton's, but explores multiple axes of manipulation, so is more holistic than the eight criteria of: Milieu Control, Mystical Manipulation (Planned Spontaneity), The Demand For Purity, Confession, Sacred Science, Loading the Language, Doctrine Over Person, Dispensing of Existence.

In brief, some of these characteristics are:

Milieu control:

• Control of access to information
• Isolation from other viewpoints
• A series of increasingly intense lectures and meetings
• An antagonistic "us vs. them" approach to the outside world

Mystical Manipulation:

• The "principles" (God-centered or otherwise) can be put forcibly and claimed exclusively, so that the cult and its beliefs become the only true path to salvation
• Extensive personal manipulation
• Legitimizes the deception used to recruit new members and/or raise funds, and the deception used on the "outside world"

The Demand for Purity

• The world becomes sharply divided into the pure and the impure, the absolutely good (the group/ideology) and the absolutely evil (everything outside the group)
• One must continually change or conform to the group "norm"
• Tendencies towards guilt and shame are used as emotional levers for the group's controlling and manipulative influences
• Once a person has experienced the totalist polarization of good/evil (black/white thinking), he has great difficulty in regaining a more balanced inner sensitivity to the complexities of human morality
• The radical separation of pure/impure is both within the environment (the group) and the individual
• Ties in with the process of confession -- one must confess when one is not conforming

Confession

• Sessions in which one confesses to one's sin are accompanied by patterns of criticism and self-criticism, generally transpiring within small groups with an active and dynamic thrust toward personal change
• Is an act of symbolic self-surrender
• "The more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you

Sacred Science

• The totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic doctrine or ideology, holding it as an ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence
• Questioning or criticizing those basic assumptions is prohibited
• Offers considerable security to young people because it greatly simplifies the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a sacred set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying the truth about human behavior and human psychology

Loading the Language

• The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliche (thought-stoppers)
• Words are given new meanings -- the outside world does not use the words or phrases in the same way -- it becomes a "group" word or phrase

Doctrine over Person

• Every issue in one's life can be reduced to a single set of principles that have an inner coherence to the point that one can claim the experience of truth and feel it
• The pattern of doctrine over person occurs when there is a conflict between what one feels oneself experiencing and what the doctrine or ideology says one should experience
• If one questions the beliefs of the group or the leaders of the group, one is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to even question -- it is always "turned around" on them and the questioner/criticizer is questioned rather than the questions answered directly
• The underlying assumption is that doctrine/ideology is ultimately more valid, true and real than any aspect of actual human character or human experience and one must subject one's experience to that "truth"
• The experience of contradiction can be immediately associated with guilt
• One is made to feel that doubts are reflections of one's own evil

Dispensing of Existance

• Since the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those who are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened, are not saved, and do not have the right to exist
• One outside the group may always receive their right of existence by joining the group
• Fear manipulation -- if one leaves this group, one leaves God or loses their transformation, for something bad will happen to them
• The group is the "elite", outsiders are "of the world", "evil", "unenlightened", etc.

This would also be an accurate way to define a cult.

[Xmara]

The BITE guidelines aren’t absolute. If a group meets maybe just one or two of those criteria, then it’s not a cult. It’s when the group meets a large number of those criteria that it becomes suspect. I do not think that any ordinary, harmless group meets enough of those criteria to be classified as a cult.

I think they’re mostly accurate. A few minor tweaks could be made, but I think it works.

EDIT: Upon reviewing the guidelines, I’ve realized that BITE can be used to assess unhealthy relationships as well as potential cults.

Many of the criteria are common to religion, at least Christianity, so it can easily lead to an ordinary church being labeled as a cult.

A few criteria are met, but really any religion could meet a few criteria.

It’s kinda like psychological assessments. It’s normal for people to meet a few criteria for diagnosis of, say, schizophrenia or psychopathy. On the Psychopathy Checklist, scores above 30/40 indicate psychopathy, which means there are people out there who exhibit some psychopathic traits without necessarily being a psychopath. Likewise there are groups that may exhibit cult traits without being cults.

[The Free Joy State]

The BITE guidelines aren’t absolute. If a group meets maybe just one or two of those criteria, then it’s not a cult. It’s when the group meets a large number of those criteria that it becomes suspect. I do not think that any ordinary, harmless group meets enough of those criteria to be classified as a cult.

I think they’re mostly accurate. A few minor tweaks could be made, but I think it works.

EDIT: Upon reviewing the guidelines, I’ve realized that BITE can be used to assess unhealthy relationships as well as potential cults.

Many of the criteria are common to religion, at least Christianity, so it can easily lead to an ordinary church being labeled as a cult.

I have never attended an ordinary Church, one that I would describe as healthy, that met either the BITE model or Lifton's criteria for Thought Reform.

Perhaps ticked off one or two (no religion scores a zero). But not one that ticks many or all the boxes.

[Neanderthaland]

The BITE guidelines aren’t absolute. If a group meets maybe just one or two of those criteria, then it’s not a cult. It’s when the group meets a large number of those criteria that it becomes suspect. I do not think that any ordinary, harmless group meets enough of those criteria to be classified as a cult.

I think they’re mostly accurate. A few minor tweaks could be made, but I think it works.

EDIT: Upon reviewing the guidelines, I’ve realized that BITE can be used to assess unhealthy relationships as well as potential cults.

Many of the criteria are common to religion, at least Christianity, so it can easily lead to an ordinary church being labeled as a cult.

You've phrased this in such a way as to suggest that we need to abandon BITE, lest it negatively impact "ordinary" churches. Rather than asking why "ordinary" churches engage in manipulative and/or abusive behavior.

If they do meet the criteria of BITE, that reflects purely negatively on them, and not the other way around.

[Neanderthaland]

Many of the criteria are common to religion, at least Christianity, so it can easily lead to an ordinary church being labeled as a cult.

A few criteria are met, but really any religion could meet a few criteria.

It’s kinda like psychological assessments. It’s normal for people to meet a few criteria for diagnosis of, say, schizophrenia or psychopathy. On the Psychopathy Checklist, scores above 30/40 indicate psychopathy, which means there are people out there who exhibit some psychopathic traits without necessarily being a psychopath. Likewise there are groups that may exhibit cult traits without being cults.

This too. I'd be willing to bet that most social groups hit something on that checklist.

[Xmara]

A few criteria are met, but really any religion could meet a few criteria.

It’s kinda like psychological assessments. It’s normal for people to meet a few criteria for diagnosis of, say, schizophrenia or psychopathy. On the Psychopathy Checklist, scores above 30/40 indicate psychopathy, which means there are people out there who exhibit some psychopathic traits without necessarily being a psychopath. Likewise there are groups that may exhibit cult traits without being cults.

This too. I'd be willing to bet that most social groups hit something on that checklist.

Honestly it would be strange to find a group that hit none of those things on the list.

[The Free Joy State]

A few criteria are met, but really any religion could meet a few criteria.

It’s kinda like psychological assessments. It’s normal for people to meet a few criteria for diagnosis of, say, schizophrenia or psychopathy. On the Psychopathy Checklist, scores above 30/40 indicate psychopathy, which means there are people out there who exhibit some psychopathic traits without necessarily being a psychopath. Likewise there are groups that may exhibit cult traits without being cults.

This too. I'd be willing to bet that most social groups hit something on that checklist.

I agree. I think no group would score a zero.

But if a group's scoring in the higher range, then -- to me -- that's a sign there's something wrong with the group, not the metric.

[New Bremerton]

All religions are cults to varying degrees. Every major religion in existence today started off like any other cult. If L. Ron Hubbard had lived 2000 years ago, Scientology would be one of the world's major religions today, albeit far removed from its original customs and practices. Jesus and Mohammed were the leaders of their respective cults.

Cult-like behavior can also apply to secular political ideologies such as communism and fascism, particularly if they revolve around the worship of a single person e.g. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, the Kims, Xi Jinping, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, etc.

I really don't feel like there's a clear dividing line separating cults from non-cults. It's all a matter of degree. A cult of personality and a very high degree of control over one's acolytes in every aspect of their lives are key features. Religion is optional, although invoking a fear of a vengeful, imaginary deity really helps.

[VVerkia]

Like many techniques, it is not inherently good or evil. If mind control techniques are used to empower an individual to have more choice, and authority for their life remains within themselves, the effects can be beneficial. For example, benevolent mind control can be used to help people quit smoking without affecting any other behavior. Mind control becomes destructive when it undermines a person’s ability to think and act independently.

I don't support any kind of "mind control", "brainwashing" First case is telling, that is "beneficial", but it's only from pov of "controller" or society. From pov of "client" it can be seen as beneficial but is it? Someone can be manipulated to accept that kind of "technique" and "accept" it on surface layers of cognity, eg by words, but not by feeling, thinking, understanding what's going on. When considering something from "beneficial" pov, then from my pov, that treatment is more like made by "machine", not by human heart. Somehow that kind of controlling behaviour looks for me similar to "clockwork orange".

Deliberately withhold and distort information

Some informations can be hidden behind words (i don't say about feelings, because from my pov, feeling can't be accurate described by words), which can lead to situations, where "only insiders" can know or think, that something is hidden from others. It's better to make information clear, because not clear information lead to misunderstandings. If someone gain benefits from misunderstandings, that can be harmful for "members" or "clients". Also "laws" can be viewed in that pov. Not clearly understand by somehow straight-minded peoples, using "laws" against them like in "lawful evil" alignment situations, corporations, etc.

Religion is optional, although invoking a fear of a vengeful, imaginary deity really helps.

Help for who? For someone who invoke? Or for someone on who it is invoked? In which way?

[Xmara]

This too. I'd be willing to bet that most social groups hit something on that checklist.

I agree. I think no group would score a zero.

But if a group's scoring in the higher range, then -- to me -- that's a sign there's something wrong with the group, not the metric.

And going by the criteria, Christianity does not score high on the list.

[Nakena]

I would say the BITE model is accurate. It can easily be seen in practise when you look at high-pressure cultic groups (the JWs, the Family International, the Scientologists). The BITE model follows after Lifton's Eight Criteria for Thought Reform and Margaret Singer's excellent research Cults in Our Midst (I recommend you track that book down and give it a read; it's ground-breaking).

In many ways, it's similar to Lifton's, but explores multiple axes of manipulation, so is more holistic than the eight criteria of: Milieu Control, Mystical Manipulation (Planned Spontaneity), The Demand For Purity, Confession, Sacred Science, Loading the Language, Doctrine Over Person, Dispensing of Existence.

In brief, some of these characteristics are:

Milieu control:

• Control of access to information
• Isolation from other viewpoints
• A series of increasingly intense lectures and meetings
• An antagonistic "us vs. them" approach to the outside world

Mystical Manipulation:

• The "principles" (God-centered or otherwise) can be put forcibly and claimed exclusively, so that the cult and its beliefs become the only true path to salvation
• Extensive personal manipulation
• Legitimizes the deception used to recruit new members and/or raise funds, and the deception used on the "outside world"

The Demand for Purity

• The world becomes sharply divided into the pure and the impure, the absolutely good (the group/ideology) and the absolutely evil (everything outside the group)
• One must continually change or conform to the group "norm"
• Tendencies towards guilt and shame are used as emotional levers for the group's controlling and manipulative influences
• Once a person has experienced the totalist polarization of good/evil (black/white thinking), he has great difficulty in regaining a more balanced inner sensitivity to the complexities of human morality
• The radical separation of pure/impure is both within the environment (the group) and the individual
• Ties in with the process of confession -- one must confess when one is not conforming

Confession

• Sessions in which one confesses to one's sin are accompanied by patterns of criticism and self-criticism, generally transpiring within small groups with an active and dynamic thrust toward personal change
• Is an act of symbolic self-surrender
• "The more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you

Sacred Science

• The totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic doctrine or ideology, holding it as an ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence
• Questioning or criticizing those basic assumptions is prohibited
• Offers considerable security to young people because it greatly simplifies the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a sacred set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying the truth about human behavior and human psychology

Loading the Language

• The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliche (thought-stoppers)
• Words are given new meanings -- the outside world does not use the words or phrases in the same way -- it becomes a "group" word or phrase

Doctrine over Person

• Every issue in one's life can be reduced to a single set of principles that have an inner coherence to the point that one can claim the experience of truth and feel it
• The pattern of doctrine over person occurs when there is a conflict between what one feels oneself experiencing and what the doctrine or ideology says one should experience
• If one questions the beliefs of the group or the leaders of the group, one is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to even question -- it is always "turned around" on them and the questioner/criticizer is questioned rather than the questions answered directly
• The underlying assumption is that doctrine/ideology is ultimately more valid, true and real than any aspect of actual human character or human experience and one must subject one's experience to that "truth"
• The experience of contradiction can be immediately associated with guilt
• One is made to feel that doubts are reflections of one's own evil

Dispensing of Existance

• Since the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those who are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened, are not saved, and do not have the right to exist
• One outside the group may always receive their right of existence by joining the group
• Fear manipulation -- if one leaves this group, one leaves God or loses their transformation, for something bad will happen to them
• The group is the "elite", outsiders are "of the world", "evil", "unenlightened", etc.

This would also be an accurate way to define a cult.

Thats an very good and excellent list. Thanks for sharing.

[Atheris]

"In modern English, a cult is a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or by its common interest in a particular personality, object or goal."

This.

[Neanderthaland]

This too. I'd be willing to bet that most social groups hit something on that checklist.

Honestly it would be strange to find a group that hit none of those things on the list.

It somewhat depends on how rigorously we define these:

"Restrict or control sexuality"
Could mean, "man, no. Don't call her back. She's bad for you. You know this. Remember last time? You need to find someone better for you."

Or it could mean, "back into the punishment box you go until you learn to stop thinking those wicked thoughts."

[Geneviev]

I would say the BITE model is accurate. It can easily be seen in practise when you look at high-pressure cultic groups (the JWs, the Family International, the Scientologists). The BITE model follows after Lifton's Eight Criteria for Thought Reform and Margaret Singer's excellent research Cults in Our Midst (I recommend you track that book down and give it a read; it's ground-breaking).

In many ways, it's similar to Lifton's, but explores multiple axes of manipulation, so is more holistic than the eight criteria of: Milieu Control, Mystical Manipulation (Planned Spontaneity), The Demand For Purity, Confession, Sacred Science, Loading the Language, Doctrine Over Person, Dispensing of Existence.

In brief, some of these characteristics are:

Milieu control:

• Control of access to information
• Isolation from other viewpoints
• A series of increasingly intense lectures and meetings
• An antagonistic "us vs. them" approach to the outside world

Mystical Manipulation:

• The "principles" (God-centered or otherwise) can be put forcibly and claimed exclusively, so that the cult and its beliefs become the only true path to salvation
• Extensive personal manipulation
• Legitimizes the deception used to recruit new members and/or raise funds, and the deception used on the "outside world"

The Demand for Purity

• The world becomes sharply divided into the pure and the impure, the absolutely good (the group/ideology) and the absolutely evil (everything outside the group)
• One must continually change or conform to the group "norm"
• Tendencies towards guilt and shame are used as emotional levers for the group's controlling and manipulative influences
• Once a person has experienced the totalist polarization of good/evil (black/white thinking), he has great difficulty in regaining a more balanced inner sensitivity to the complexities of human morality
• The radical separation of pure/impure is both within the environment (the group) and the individual
• Ties in with the process of confession -- one must confess when one is not conforming

Confession

• Sessions in which one confesses to one's sin are accompanied by patterns of criticism and self-criticism, generally transpiring within small groups with an active and dynamic thrust toward personal change
• Is an act of symbolic self-surrender
• "The more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you

Sacred Science

• The totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic doctrine or ideology, holding it as an ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence
• Questioning or criticizing those basic assumptions is prohibited
• Offers considerable security to young people because it greatly simplifies the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a sacred set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying the truth about human behavior and human psychology

Loading the Language

• The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliche (thought-stoppers)
• Words are given new meanings -- the outside world does not use the words or phrases in the same way -- it becomes a "group" word or phrase

Doctrine over Person

• Every issue in one's life can be reduced to a single set of principles that have an inner coherence to the point that one can claim the experience of truth and feel it
• The pattern of doctrine over person occurs when there is a conflict between what one feels oneself experiencing and what the doctrine or ideology says one should experience
• If one questions the beliefs of the group or the leaders of the group, one is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to even question -- it is always "turned around" on them and the questioner/criticizer is questioned rather than the questions answered directly
• The underlying assumption is that doctrine/ideology is ultimately more valid, true and real than any aspect of actual human character or human experience and one must subject one's experience to that "truth"
• The experience of contradiction can be immediately associated with guilt
• One is made to feel that doubts are reflections of one's own evil

Dispensing of Existance

• Since the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those who are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened, are not saved, and do not have the right to exist
• One outside the group may always receive their right of existence by joining the group
• Fear manipulation -- if one leaves this group, one leaves God or loses their transformation, for something bad will happen to them
• The group is the "elite", outsiders are "of the world", "evil", "unenlightened", etc.

This would also be an accurate way to define a cult.

Those criteria are better than the BITE model, and include less of the anti-religion bias.

[Minskiev]

Apparently, Mormons rank quite highly. Hmm.

[Nakena]

I agree. I think no group would score a zero.

But if a group's scoring in the higher range, then -- to me -- that's a sign there's something wrong with the group, not the metric.

And going by the criteria, Christianity does not score high on the list.

Most contemporary mainstreams denominations not so much.

However Jehovas Witness fit in.

[Geneviev]

Many of the criteria are common to religion, at least Christianity, so it can easily lead to an ordinary church being labeled as a cult.

I have never attended an ordinary Church, one that I would describe as healthy, that met either the BITE model or Lifton's criteria for Thought Reform.

Perhaps ticked off one or two (no religion scores a zero). But not one that ticks many or all the boxes.

A few examples would be restrict or control sexuality including the idea of sexual morality, restricting clothing and hairstyles including modesty, sleep deprivation if you have to wake up early, discouraging access to outside information if it's inaccurate, or things like that. Ordinary religion does match a lot of the BITE model.

[The Free Joy State]

I agree. I think no group would score a zero.

But if a group's scoring in the higher range, then -- to me -- that's a sign there's something wrong with the group, not the metric.

And going by the criteria, Christianity does not score high on the list.

That's true, while some of the more high-demand groups might. But you can't judge all Christians by the IFB, anymore than you can judge all Buddhists by Aum Shrinrikyo.

[Xmara]

Honestly it would be strange to find a group that hit none of those things on the list.

It somewhat depends on how rigorously we define these:

"Restrict or control sexuality"
Could mean, "man, no. Don't call her back. She's bad for you. You know this. Remember last time? You need to find someone better for you."

Or it could mean, "back into the punishment box you go until you learn to stop thinking those wicked thoughts."

Good point. Some of the criteria are a bit vague. Really the only criticism I can offer about BITE.

With “restrict or control sexuality,” I think the latter example you gave fits better. The former sounds more like a friend trying to be supportive and give good advice.

[Xmara]

And going by the criteria, Christianity does not score high on the list.

That's true, while some of the more high-demand groups might. But you can't judge all Christians by the IFB, anymore than you can judge all Buddhists by Aum Shrinrikyo.

Yeah, poor wording on my part. I meant that, in general, Christianity doesn’t meet the definition. Not including fringe groups like IFB.

[The Free Joy State]

I have never attended an ordinary Church, one that I would describe as healthy, that met either the BITE model or Lifton's criteria for Thought Reform.

Perhaps ticked off one or two (no religion scores a zero). But not one that ticks many or all the boxes.

A few examples would be restrict or control sexuality including the idea of sexual morality, restricting clothing and hairstyles including modesty, sleep deprivation if you have to wake up early, discouraging access to outside information if it's inaccurate, or things like that. Ordinary religion does match a lot of the BITE model.

I've been a member of mainstream Churches. They never told me I had to dress a certain way, or told me I shouldn't access outside information, or told me to wake up early. It welcomed unmarried couples and single mothers, so no restricting sexuality either.

Telling people not to have sex, or that they're not to wear certain clothes, and not to access outside information don't sound like the actions of a mainstream, ordinary church. Not in my experience.

[New Bremerton]

And going by the criteria, Christianity does not score high on the list.

Most contemporary mainstreams denominations not so much.

However Jehovas Witness fit in.

Mainstream religions and denominations have had plenty of time for their original founders to die off and for their original cult-like features to be gradually swept aside.