The issues they represent are basic to our society, to our understanding of each other, and to our accepting our vulnerabilities and the potential for abuse within our world. In this book I will use cult and cultic group to refer to any one of a large number of groups that have sprung up in our society and that are similar in the way they originate, their power structure, and their governance. Cults range from relatively benign to those that exercise extraordinary control over members' lives and use thought reform processes to influence and control members. While the conduct of certain cults causes nonmembers to criticize them, the term cult is not in itself pejorative but simply descriptive. It denotes a group that forms around a person who claims he or she has a special mission or knowledge, which will be shared with those who turn over most of their decision making to that self-appointed leader.
Cults come in all sizes, form around any theme, and recruit persons of all ages and backgrounds.
Not all cults are religious, as some people think. Their reasons for existing may concern religion, life-style, politics, or assorted philosophies. Not everyone who is approached by a cult recruiter joins, and of those who join, not all stay forever. Cults vary in how much financial and political power they wield. Some are local phenomena with only a dozen members.