There's some pretty salient characteristics of an actual cult that make it different from just a group of very devoted followers. Namely: - Cults usually emplo

There's some pretty salient characteristics of an actual cult that make it different from just a group of very devoted followers. Namely: - Cults usually employ a number of heavy-handed psychological manipulation techniques, often together (e.g. 12-hour conference sessions; speakers that drone on at at about 50 beats per minute; loud, lengthy chanting that exhausts your brain's oxygen and makes you less critical; preying on people who are desperate for some reason) - It's not enough for a cult to have you as a member - they also have to remove the influence of other movements from your life, lest you might realise who stupid it all is and break off. So part of a cult's mode of control will involve breaking off your relationships with other groups important in your life: family, religion, work... and replacing them with social ties within the cult. - Cults generally require escalating levels of contribution. At first maybe you just need to donate a bit of money, but by the end your entire life is at the service of the cult. If the accused cult doesn't fit any of these criteria, it's probably not a cult, just a bunch of very devoted zealots. If it fits even one of these criteria, start to worry. If it fits more than one, it's almost certainly a "bad" cult. Source: my dad's a psychologist and studied cults, but this is just from memory.