There has been said many things about cults, but what is at the essence of it?
I put forward this: Any group that has an anathema about criticsm is a cult. Something you cannot question.
Do you agree? What is a better test for it? … and how can you notice if you are in one? Certainy, cults don’t say it’s a cult
Cults may not say that they are cults, but cultures say they are cultures.
You can notice if you are in a cult, or within a culture, when you just follow, and do not question absolutely everything that is told and put forward to you.
The essence of a cult or a culture is having followers who do not question.
I agree with what you put forward, but I question why does it have to be a group that has a vehemently dislike of criticism? Why can’t it just be a group with any sort of dislike of criticism?
Does your group, or the culture you live in, have a dislike about being criticised?
Do the leaders of your culture, or cult, like to be criticised?
Can they be questioned about everything that they expect others to follow, and to be led by?
What does ‘cultures’ have to do with it?
I think most any group has a dislike of criticism, and I wouldn’t consider it a cult. Say, a classroom.
But, certainly, to remove anyone that arises criticism, I’d say, is a proper mark of a cult.
Mainstream pseudoscience is a religious cult…lt has a statue of its god Shiva proudly displayed outside its HQ at CERN near Geneva.
It’s starting philosophical claim is that equal but opposite force absolutes do not exist in the cosmos which we know is total nonsense because it’s impossible to cancel out the attractive and repulsive electromagnetic force absolutes that hold all matter together causing it all to vibrate.
What I expressed before is what cultures have to do with it. If a culture does not like criticism, then by your logic also, that is a cult.
What has a classroom got to do with a cult or a culture?
You said any group that has an intense dislike about criticism is a cult. I know of both cults, and of cultures, which are like this. I don’t know of any classroom like this.
No, I did not say that people dislike criticism in a cult, but that you are expelled from it when criticizing.
A classroom is a group in which some people dislike criticisms (I assume we all have experienced that), and nobody is removed from it because of criticism.
No, you did say about ‘intense dislike’, I said that any group from which you are removed by criticizing it is a cult.
It’s quite odd that you tell me that I expressed what you expressed before.
Let’s say, which of the next do you think are cults?
I thought you said, “Any group that has an anathema about criticsm is a cult”.
Can people in cultures be expelled when they are criticizing?
So, what has a classroom got to do with a cult?
I said, ‘intense dislike’ because you wrote, ‘anathema’.
How does one get removed by criticizing?
Why do you find it ‘quite odd’ when I repeated what you wrote, just in different words?
All three. As I said earlier, when you asked, “What is a better test for a cult?” when I replied with, “A cult or a culture is having followers who do not question”.
Am I not allowed to provide a different sort of response to your question, “What is a better test?”,
How you can notice if you are in a cult, is after you notice that you are just following a crowd or group and you are not questioning what they say or do.
This phenomenon of not questioning happens in cults, just like it does in cultures. So, if one finds them self not questioning what is being said and claimed or not questioning what is being done within a culture, then this is when, and how, you can notice that you are in a cult.
I don’t understand where your questions come from.
Cult and culture only share the first 4 letters.
I don’t see people being kicked out of cultures. In fact, it’s quite hard to get out of it, plus that what doesn’t constitute a ‘culture’ baffles me.
For example, if you are in a Flat Earth group, saying “but what if the earth is not really flat?” would actually kick you out of the group, wouldn’t you say?
How do you notice if you are following such and such without questioning?
My questions come from inquisitiveness. Where do your questions come from?
If you believe that the only thing cult and culture share are the first four letters, then you have really not put much inquisitiveness and consideration into how and why people in all cultures come to come to see and believe the very things that they do within their culture. Where did you think cultural rituals and “norms” come from exactly? How do you think they came to be without some sort of cult influence?
In fact where did you think the word ‘culture’ come from?
Or have you not thought about these things before?
Just because you defined “cult” in one very specific way means that your definition is the one and only one.
Anyway, people are very clearly and obviously denigrate, separated, and isolated from cultural groups. The word, “ostracised”, literally means being banished from a society or group. So, even under your own definition for “cult”, this does happen in societies and in cultures.
Obviously if you do not even have the thought to question what is being told to you but you still believe it to be true, when no proof has actually been provided, then that is a sign and thus notice that you are within a cult.
And, if you are too afraid of being kicked out if you just asked a question, then that is further proof that you are within a cult.
If you are in a flat earth group or are in Trump’s group, saying “but what if?” would actually get you kicked out of those groups, wouldn’t you say?
See, again, it does not matter what group or culture you are in, if you are not questioning the group, for either not thinking to question the group or for fear of being kicked out, is proof that you are in a cult.
Like I said above, You can notice and know if you are in a cult when you just follow, and do not question absolutely everything, that is told and put forward to you.
The reason some people have not yet noticed and recognized the actual cults that are in is because they were born into and raised up in those cults. To these people they do not notice that their our culture is not a cult. They do not recognise that they are in a cult. Which is, to some, a definition of being in a cult.
Being tricked and deceived into believing that the cult that one is actually in is not a cult is the purpose of cults. And the very fact that just about every person does not believe that the culture, which a person calls is “their culture”, is in fact an actual cult. As you have shown and proved above here.
Cultures became so finely tuned that people for thousands of years had not recognized and noticed that they are, in fact, actual cults in and of themselves.
and the law enforcement who showed up in Waco.
Blind faith combined with social pressure to maintain said blind faith
Suppose you would be in such a could. Could you notice that characteristics from the inside?
Since we are talking about a cult, the first problem would be not realization itself.
Cults demand compliance, so your starting point is “the value of realization”.
In a most instinctive way, the human brain is not stupid. It realizes the threat of dissent.
At a bare minimum its exile from the group which can cost you food and shelter, and at worst its outright your life.
If the value of realization does not align, puts you and your loved ones at risk, then the truth becomes secondary.
Now if you step over that first issue, then the next one will come down to intellectual honesty (not lying to yourself) and critical thinking (your ability to detect inconsistencies and evaluating information).
Third is independence of identity. The ability to exist on your own psychologically and not requiring others to affirm you.
TL;DR:
Ultimately, it will depend on the individual’s abilities.
Whats easy for me or you, might be near impossible for someone else.
So yeah, provided that you have the abilities for it, you can easily see the characteristics of it, even from the inside.
If you dont, then not only will you not see, you will be actively fighting the accusations towards it.
I think too it’s important that cults have a positive side, a mythology. Including materialists.
That is how you measure dissent. Actual belief is unimportant, the positive is there purely to measure dissent. They are often gobbledygook on purpose. Actually, always.
Please do elaborate further
Often it is thought that people who are in cults are in small cults, we tend to think of small cults, fringe cults. I see the materialists as being considered in the thread. But in general, people think of smallish cults that are not popular. I think we also see that, you know, they throw you out of the cult, but a modern human, especially someone living in an urban area, you can’t really throw people out. You can locally throw them out, but you can’t throw someone out of being a materialist. Like, that just doesn’t work, not in the West, and I don’t think you can anywhere else. But what you can do is make their life worse. You can shun them, judge them, look down on them, make them feel very uncomfortable, and that might be enough. I suppose in high school, you get down to the small cult level. Also, with today’s media, you can make their lives hell if they say something that’s wrong. And that could be something about the situation in Palestine or the current war. It could be COVID. And COVID, there was a great deal of throwing out. And there we finally get to something in a modern situation where the consequences could be extremely hard. You cannot question certain beliefs or you might lose your job, and worse. But I guess I wanna, you know, focus on the The cult mentality, which is an extreme lack of tolerance for divergent beliefs. Not divergent actions, because pretty much any society and any group is going to have some kind of regulations of, you know, sex with children or, you know, attacking people with a baseball bat. Well, you’re going to get more than shunned. And that’s a different kind of situation, not always easy to decide, and certainly there are gray areas and even wrong laws and so on. But what I’m thinking about is the incredible conformity pressures, and nowadays you have, you know, often two groups to choose from. And if you stray on an issue from that group, if you go against the groupthink, whatever it is, then you may get very, very harsh social consequences. Now, of course, you can move to another city, generally. You can go somewhere else, but then you either keep silent or you keep repeating it, and you might find yourself not able to spend time with people who are on the team you identified with, the philosophical or other position, that group that you felt a member of. Well, if you might have to choose between having any social life or political life within that group and maintaining your position. I think this is more common than we realize. And then there are things like… You know, the expression of a wide range of emotions, and there you have society as a whole that may very well hop in. There’s such a cultish judgment of the expression of emotions, and not just how much, but how long, in what contexts. You’re pretty much told you need to suppress your emotions in public. Of course, you know, people have outbursts of anger, but even just walking around crying is going to probably cause you problems and also meet a bunch of social judgment, which adds to whatever is making you crying. So I just wanted to broaden it out. Maybe others have broadened this out already, but I think that cult thinking is all over the place. It’s just with in most situations, you’re not quite so formally enrolled. You’re not in a specific rural setting on a ranch where everyone there is a member and everyone follows certain, you know, rituals and protocols and so on. But the kinds of cult social punishments are still present.
Have some mercy on mere mortals like myself and please use paragraphs 
And you do have a point ofc.
Covid, politics, cancel culture, metoo, blm, nazi, etc etc etc all socially and culturally relevant things have a tendency to incite cult behavior. Even science and academia is not free from this, which (in theory at least) should be absolutely and fully clear of it.
You can consider tribalism, conformity, group think and herd instinct the lil brothers of cult behavior.
However, on their own none of those are a cult per say, i think i would agree with pseudoai on this bit:
We have an entire spectrum and rainbow of terms and concepts that curbs individual/critical thinking in favor of remaining part of the/a group.
But what makes a cult in the most literal sense of the word is the fact that they do not tolerate dissent and criticism.
At least in my opinion.
will do. came out longer than I realized - I used speech to text - and I didn’ t notice.
Oh absolutely. Did you know that in science believing that animals were conscious experiencers with desires intentions, etc. was professionally dangerous if expressed in professional contexts up until the 70s? They were still following Descartes (and to some degree even Christianity) in seeing animals as machines (or without souls from C, not that they would have worded it that way).
I guess what I’m saying is that we notice in groups, like if you were in a college and you were in the more conservative dorm and you started saying woke stuff, or in the more woke dorm and saying conservative stuff or skeptical, you might find something very similar to a cult situation manifest. It could also happen at workplaces.
But here’s, I think, the more interesting thing is where all those cultures are in agreement, and that’s why I mentioned expression of emotions. There, the society as a whole can function as a kind of pressure cooker with severe social punishments for straying. Of course, by the time you’re an adult, you’ve already been trained for years not to express emotions or to express them in sanctioned ways at football games or at protest marches. And even then, the range of what you can express is much smaller.
Yeah, there is basically no beginning and end to examples like these. SADLY.
Absolutely
It is true, but the expression of emotions is a bit of a rabbithole.
Control of your emotions is basically forced onto you because what is the alternative?
Someone who has no self-control is basically a risk to themselves and everyone around them.