Talk:Cult

Anti-cult movements

This section is about anti-cult movements in general, not anti-cult movements in America (and even if it were, that should be specified). The section also contains information about Australia. That subsection is specified as being about Australia in its title. It stands to reason that the same logic should be applied to both sections. Either the section about Australia should not mention Australia in its title, or the sections about America should mention America in their title. Nothing is being made worse by making the subsection title more specific. Endlesspumpkin (talk) 12:36, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

@Endlesspumpkin The countercult and the anti-cult movement are different things. They have different motives, ideologies, and circumstances, and are discussed separately. The counter-cult movement is Christian and are against cults for being heretical and only exists in the United States, while the anti-cult movement is largely secular and opposed to cults for being harmful. There are several books about this. PARAKANYAA (talk) 13:09, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this addresses my point. The counter-cult movement is currently in the anti-cult movements section, which includes subsections on countries other than America. I.e. it has country specific subsections. If a subsection is specific to America there is no harm in including the fact that it is specific to America in the title on a page that is about a global issue – just as the section specific to Australia mentions Australia in its title.

Another option would be to integrate the information about Australia into the anti-cult movement subsection. However, if the subsection on anti-cult movements is supposed to be general and the information presented applicable to all anti-cult movements regardless of country, then perhaps the section on Australia should simply be removed. It is, after all, already listed on the counter-cult movement page. If we had info on every country in that section it would probably be too long, so perhaps this is the best solution. Then we could have 'American counter-cult movement' and 'global anti-cult movement'.

We could even go so far as to move the counter-cult movement out of the anti-cult movement section given that they are separate things. As it stands now the section implies that the counter-cult movement is simply part of the anti-cult movement, and that things that are specific to America do not need to specify that they are specific to America in the title, whereas things about other countries do need to specify that they are about those countries in the title.

I am not disputing the information. Endlesspumpkin (talk) 13:37, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA I'm assuming your lack of reply means that there's no real objection here to some of my suggestions. I'll remove the part on Australia, and I am going to make it obvious in the titles that the section about America is about America, and that the global section is global. Endlesspumpkin (talk) 11:04, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

@Endlesspumpkin I honestly didn't see this, but I'm fine with your suggestions, yeah. PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:44, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Religion

I noticed the edit 1372977090 and reverted it under the basis that saying religious institutes are cults is an extremely broad generalization. What would be an appropriate way to address religion in this article? 01lenny | talk | contribs 10:41, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Passive aggressive tone in the article + lack of sources?

I was going to just copy-edit the article, but realised that the article's tone remains extremely biased. I think someone would need to sit down and fix the tone. Additionally, would the description of a cult and cult psychology fit under an article like (religious) deconstruction? Yeowoobi (talk) 17:48, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

What section lacks sources? If you mean the lead WP:LEAD, we don't put sources in the lead. And I don't see the issue, the article largely reflects how sources discuss it. Cult is primarily if not exclusively applied to the religious in nature. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:00, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

That's a fair criticism. Apologies for my hyberbolic response— that doesn't have a place here. I meant that I found that the article's tone felt very biased to me, but I wasn't sure if that was the case and wanted an expert to look at it in case my assessment is wrong. I also thought that because cult is used as a pejorative term, it might have been a better idea to place it in a different category due to its controversial nature. Thank you for your gracious response— I hadn't realised how aggressive my tone was. Yeowoobi (talk) 18:29, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Undue weight

@JaredMcKenzie There are hundreds of different academics, all with varying ideas about what a cult is. We cannot choose Lifton as the single voice of what a cult means. PARAKANYAA (talk) 15:31, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Why is your username so familiar? Have we met before? And fair enough but he is one of the foremost respected voices on cults and I originally wanted to implement the point that what he described isn't actually cults. But rather the characteristics or strategies often used by cults to manipulate others. Not all groups that uses totalistic thought control methods are cults but many cults do employ them. I added his research to scholarly studies section instead of a dedicated section.

Speaking of which, there have been reports of cults specifically targeting individuals with certain tendencies like their receptiveness to believe in the supernatural and hence prone to mystic manipulation. There are many different widely recognized cults that use screening, recruiting, and operational models that are explicitly designed to find new members that they can manipulate. Apparently, they believe a certain individual with certain traits are more suggestible. I think that warrants a dedicated chapter for (targeting) where there are a good number of different cults (covered by multiple scholars) on this phenomenon. JaredMcKenzie (talk) 16:36, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

I concur with Parakanyaa here. Like I said before, the issue isn't discussing categorization schema, it's giving that much space specifically to Lifton. And, don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting he's entirely undue he has some expertise in the topic. Just... not due a whole section. Simonm223 (talk) 16:38, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

I have 95k+ edits, so, probably? I forget everyone I edit around 5 minutes later, so no clue. I edit a lot about this kind of thing.

Those are his theories, and they're probably relevant somewhere. Can't we cover his whole typology on his article and have a paragraph about it here or something, directing you to his article, on his theories? There is so much discussion of cults that one person's thoughts, cited to them, are not due so much weight.

According to some people's definition, which is not the universal definition.

Speaking of which, there have been reports by who? PARAKANYAA (talk) 16:39, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

How did you think they recruit people? Wasn't passive. A number of infamous cults sought people who naturally have a cluster of high-transcendence traits or tendencies to be impressionable.

Reports like these - cite Lifton and talks about how they filter out potential recruits by engaging in strategies such as "Milieu control" where they isolate them from the larger society. Or love bombing them to make them want more of what they hunger for.

In Scientilogy, they have the Oxford Capacity Analysis (OCA) - a free personality quiz which everyone is guaranteed to fail in and they tell you your deficiency and suggest to you they can help you be your perfect self. Now here's the trick - if you scoff and walk away - the recruiter drops you. But if you feel deep shame or urgency and impressionable enough to believe their bs - the recruiter knows you are impressionable enough to be encouraged to join their group.

And then there's Aum Shinrikyo. They deliberately sought out socially awkward geeks who possessed high intellectual capabilities but lacked emotional intelligence or real-world social ties. They gave them so-called spiritual sensitivity tests which in reality - was looking for people who were extremely impressionable and also had a hatred for Japanese corporate culture and easily swayed by messages that they were serving a higher purpose when engaging in terrorism. JaredMcKenzie (talk) 17:14, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Depends on how you define cult, because not all sources use a definition that would include those groups, or would not include major religions. And, so what?

Yes, Lifton has been cited before, it does not make him the end all be all on what a "cult" is.

Okay? PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:15, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Part of the issue with high-level survey articles like this one is that they have to cover a lot of ground. At its core a cult is just a religious community that centers around an object of devotion. The idea of a cult being specifically a new religious movement with a charismatic leader as the object of devotion is a relatively recent iteration. That iteration absolutely is in scope for this article but is not the sole topic of the article and so we have to be light with our touches. Simonm223 (talk) 17:19, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Well, this article is specifically about the recent version, excluding the older definition; Cult (religious practice) is the separate article for the devotional practice topic. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:12, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

What this article is is confused, and has bothered me for years. The definition dispute here is basically between the typical, vernacular definition of "religious group that is perceived as weird or bad or scary", the original sociological definition of "religious group that is new and not a schism" (which has mostly been supplanted by new religious movement, but is used historically) or the "any group that is harmful or abusive (basically used synonymously with terms like "high-control group", and which doesn't have to be religious at all, including terrorists, political parties, gangs...). These are very distinct things, but they are all conflated. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:15, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

I'll be honest, I forgot about Cult (religious practice). But, yes, this does get down to part of the problem here which is that this is still a survey article about a broad concept and so we shouldn't be zooming in too much on any one theorist because there are many who have worked on this topic and an encyclopedia should be summarizing the field rather than one figure within it. If used by others much of this material might be relevant for James Lifton - it's not that it's bad material - it's just too much for this one page. Simonm223 (talk) 18:18, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

I agree with that totally I'm just trying to illustrate why this is such a headache. I think his typology is relevant enough for his article and a few sentences on this one - but not so much here. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:24, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Yeah I think we agree fully. @JaredMcKenzie do you want to take a go at cutting the Lifton material down to a few sentences? Simonm223 (talk) 18:25, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Yeah I think I can manage that and try my best.

Tho originally was going for a dedicated section for (appeal and recruitment) where I outlined how certain individual are susceptible to cults. And how cults tend to attract them. That in my opinion is a worthy topic and was going to originally mention some of the appeals was it framing itself as the ultimate science which helps them gain legitimacy in the modern age despite promoting pseudoscience.

I still think that was what I should have stuck to and don't need to rely on one scholar alone for such a section. Numerous sources cover the range of methods used to recruit and retain membership. JaredMcKenzie (talk) 18:39, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

I can agree that one scholar should not be the sole voice to represent what a cult is. But an expert on cults can be relied on to give an analysis of what cults do to attract or appeal to others.

If you have a problem with a certain scholar then that's your opinion. It doesn't discredit experts in RS. And btw, you were the one who asked me which reports on recruitment. I merely answered.

Many cults uses strategies to recruit or attract. And that should warrant a dedicated section in which it's no longer one scholar but many covering this area. Many scholars describe mechanism used by cults to attract or appeal to new recruits. That info is utterly missing despite there is a wealth of scholarship. And yes, they describe it as measures that are used by cults. Such a section doesn't rely heavily on Lifton alone. Probably a fraction does but a section on recruitment and targeting would easily have substantially broader scholarly coverage. JaredMcKenzie (talk) 17:42, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

It should not warrant a dedicated section because it is presupposing certain definitions are used which most of the sourcing in the article does not. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:13, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

What? Not sure what you are saying but it seems like you are saying - we can't ever add anything that even remotely suggest something is a cult because....not everyone agrees what a cult is?

Of course, I understand this is not about any specific group. It's about cults in general. Not all cults are the same and it's challenging to have an exact definition. But James Lifton isn't trying to define what a cult is. They are merely outlining the range of methods used by cults to attract and retain membership. They are definitely not saying cults must have all 8 in order to be qualified as a cult. He is not saying that.

The fact is scholars have studied how cults attract, recruit and retain members. That is a worthy area where scholars argue it revolves around human needs: belonging, certainty, identity, and meaning etc. If a RS feels confident enough to identify how they manage to do this - it shouldn't be a Herculean task to add them to wiki. JaredMcKenzie (talk) 18:29, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

To say what some category of thing does, you necessarily have to establish what something is. If we have a wide range of scholars expressing a variance of definitions of cult, and then we have a characteristics of section cited entirely to one scholar with a different definition, without clarifying the divergence in meanings, creates a misleading impression. PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:24, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

I disagree that there needs to be a singular or finite definition of 'cult' in order to describe 'about' cults. PARAKANYAA, you have been denying 'cult' for at least two years that I know of. One can always consult this talk page's Archive7 and Archive8. This thread is particularly telling.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 02:27, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

No, there doesn't need to be one to say anything about it, but for us to have a section that says in wikivoice "These Are The Characteristics of Cults", requires that that match with what the page describes a cult as; using a totally different definition than the rest of the page, in total contradiction with other definitions on the page, is a mess. It is a mess of OR to conflate people talking about a ton of extremely different things and to treat them as the same. E.g. we could cite one scholar who has a secular, harm-based definition of cult to say in wikivoice many things about cults, then cite another scholar with the sociological religious group definition of cults to do the same, and end up with a section that is logically nonsensical. It's like if in our article Evil instead of saying who thought what was evil and their explanations we just said it in wikivoice every time.

Yes, I do not think the construct of "cult" is an especially useful one, I think I've made myself clear on that. It's much like the word "terrorist". Conflating weird or obscure religion with harmfulness, as is embedded into the connotation and many of the literal definitions, and the original definition, used by scholars, is a semantic disaster. Better phrases like "high-control group" or the like avoid this. IMO it's only useful insofar as its usage applied to a particular group demonstrates that they probably have done something bad. Some scholars agree with me on that, others don't. But regardless of what I think we need the page to make sense. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:36, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

I see two things jump out from your comment. (1) It sounds to me like you're arguing "scope" of the article; the scope should be defined early in the article. (2) You have many times made it clear you don't like the word 'cult', that is has many meanings, and that it is loaded language. However, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. I posit that its purpose is to explain the term, the many meanings, give context to these meanings, and go from there—not to censor it wholesale in favor of other terms such as 'high control group' (for one meaning) or 'new religious movement' (for another meaning). Explain and give it shape. Give readers an understanding for a word that is used every day.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 03:50, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

1. Yes, the scope is inextricable from the content. The scope decides what we include in the article.

2. That was in response to you saying I was denying it, not in reference to any article content. I am not arguing we abandon the terminology here but since you mentioned what you thought my perspective was I addressed my perspective. its purpose is to explain the term, the many meanings, give context to these meanings; sure, I agree with that, but this means reflecting the abundance of perspectives and clearly delineating the limits of our sourcing, not making 1 scholar the end all be all of definitions and characterizations. PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:57, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

This article's scope should be as a meta-article, a top-level summary of "cults" per WP:SUMMARY.

It should define and summarize the several uses of the term "cult", then branch off to further explain each type. We already have separate articles for Cult (religious practice) and New religious movement, but we do NOT have separate articles for High control group, Destructive cult, and Political cult. Since they redirect right back here, it should be no surprise that their content gets added here. See the other 24 cult-subtopics that redirect here.

Fix the real scope by making this a meta-article, define all the terms, and branch to their various subtopics.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 04:43, 12 September 2026 (UTC)