America has a weird relationship with cults where they’re terrified of small cults (or organizations they think are cults) but completely normalized massive cults that hurt many more people (eg: LDS Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Amish, Scientology, most Megachurches)
To anybody asking if the Amish are a cult, the answer is yes, very much so.
They’re a high control group that isolate you from society. The cult decides how you dress, how you behave, who you marry and how. They control what you know, blocking all information from the outside world. They control how you feel and what you’re allowed to think with threats of both social and supernatural harm. They’re a cult.
The best method to determine if a group is a cult, in my opinion, is Steven Hassan’s (cult expert and former cult member himself) BITE model.
BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.
The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.
I think this model is the best one for several reasons:
It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups
It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.
It focuses on what’s important, which is what the cult does to its members, and those members’ experiences, and not on irrelevant details like how uncommon their doctrines are or whether they have a charismatic leader
This is a great example of Thought Control used by cults whenever they’re confronted with criticism.
The creator of the BITE Model considers abusive relationships to be two-person cults.
It’s important to note that almost every sect of evangelical christianity in the US today fails the BITE Model.
This was the post that lead to breaking my JW mindset. Been a while since I seen it.
I’m glad I could help in your deconstruction, if only a little bit. I wish you all the luck in your journey moving forward.
Note that plenty of organizations will score high on “behavior control.” Medical school controls most of those aspects of life.
There’s a reason there are multiple categories. And a reason there’s no checklist-with-points: No notes about “if a group has THIS MANY items checked off, or averages THIS MANY per category, they are a cult.”
There’s no absolute answers. Each group will need to be evaluated on its own. And if you find a group that hits half or more of the items but you don’t think it’s a cult – consider why.
Maybe you’re biased. Or maybe the group has legit, good reasons to control its members’ lives to that extent. (E.g. substance abuse recovery centers may use a lot of those techniques.) But you can at least acknowledge that those are very controlling, cult-like methods, and understand that many people would find the group creepy and unethical, even if it has good intentions.
