Glossary
214 terms used across CLCI Hub — the BITE model, Lifton's eight criteria, Lalich's bounded choice, group-specific vocabulary, recovery & exit language, legal cases, and academic references.
- 5-MeO-DMT / BufoBehavior
- Powerful psychedelic from Bufo alvarius toad secretions. Some Western facilitator circles operate as high-control communities under guru-figures.
- AhimsaBehavior
- Non-violence — central Jain ethical principle, also important in Hinduism and Buddhism.
- See: Mainstream Jainism, Mainstream Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma)
- Algorithmic Cult PipelineInformation
- Recommendation-algorithm-driven escalation from mainstream content into high-control content (QAnon, wellness, alt-right, etc.).
- AMO (Amway)Behavior
- Amway Motivational Organisation — the upline-controlled tools / tapes / seminars subculture documented as the actual profit centre for top distributors.
- See: Amway (MLM)
- ApostasyThought
- Departure from a religious tradition. In high-control groups, often punished by formal shunning or in some jurisdictions by legal penalty.
- ApostateThought
- Loaded term used by many high-control groups for ex-members who publicly speak out — designed to discredit testimony in advance.
- Ascended MasterInformation
- New Age / Theosophical concept of enlightened beings. Various high-control groups claim privileged channelling.
- AscensionThought
- New Age term for the imminent collective spiritual transformation of humanity. A common rhetorical device in apocalyptic wellness communities.
- Atmosphere of Total PowerBehavior
- Lifton's term for the way leadership in a totalist environment can decide who lives and dies inside the group's social world (the 'dispensing of existence').
- AuditingInformation
- Scientology's confessional 'spiritual counselling' practice. Pre-Clear folders containing personal disclosures are retained by the Church.
- See: Church of Scientology
- Authentic Identity
- The pre-cult sense of self that recovery work seeks to reconnect the ex-member with.
- Ayahuasca TourismBehavior
- Western pilgrimage to South American ayahuasca retreats. Mainstream UDV / Santo Daime are church-organised; specific Western-facing facilitators have produced documented abuse cases.
- Behavior ControlBehavior
- Regulation of daily life — dress, schedule, finances, sleep, sex, and relationships. The first BITE category.
- Beit DinBehavior
- Rabbinic court adjudicating disputes within Orthodox / Haredi communities. In high-control settings, members are pressured to use it instead of civil courts.
- See: Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Haredi)
- BhaktiEmotional
- Devotional love directed toward a chosen deity. Central to ISKCON practice.
- See: ISKCON (Hare Krishna)
- Bid'ahThought
- 'Innovation' in religious practice. High-control Salafi sub-currents narrow acceptable practice tightly via this concept.
- See: Salafist Islam (high-control sub-branches)
- BITE Model
- Steven Hassan's framework (1988) describing how high-control groups govern members across four axes: Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotional control.
- Black-and-White ThinkingThought
- Categorical framing of reality (saved/lost, awakened/asleep, in/out) discouraging nuance and outside information.
- Black-PillingEmotional
- Online-radical-community term for adopting a nihilistic worldview that no peaceful change is possible. Associated with violent actors.
- Body RoutingBehavior
- Scientology-internal recruitment practice of physically escorting prospective members from initial contact through paid courses.
- See: Church of Scientology
- Boss Babe / MompreneurThought
- MLM marketing tropes targeting women — empowerment-coded language masking high financial risk.
- Bounded Choice
- Janja Lalich's framework explaining how members make 'real' choices that are nonetheless tightly bounded by the group's worldview and exit costs.
- Brain EducationInformation
- Dahn / Body & Brain organisational framework presenting Ilchi Lee's teachings as a proprietary cognitive technology.
- See: Dahn Yoga / Body & Brain (Ilchi Lee)
- C-PTSDEmotional
- Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder — pattern of trauma sequelae from prolonged interpersonal stress. Common in high-control-group survivors.
- CaliphateThought
- Historical Islamic political-religious institution claiming succession from the Prophet. Hizb ut-Tahrir and ISIS sought to restore it; both rejected by mainstream scholarship.
- See: Hizb ut-Tahrir, ISIS / 'Islamic State' ideology (recruitment networks)
- ChandaBehavior
- Ahmadiyya Muslim Community's tithe / contribution categories.
- See: Ahmadiyya Muslim Community
- ChannelingInformation
- The practice of allegedly receiving messages from non-physical entities. Common in NRMs (Brahma Kumaris, Love Has Won, etc.).
- Charismatic Leader
- A leader whose authority rests on perceived personal qualities. Most high-CLCI groups in the dataset are organised around one.
- CLCI
- The Cult-Like Control Index — this site's transparent 0–40 scoring system: B + I + T + E + signed modifier, clamped 0–40.
- Cognitive DissociationEmotional
- Detachment from one's own thoughts or feelings — common during long-term high-control involvement and during recovery.
- Cognitive DissonanceThought
- Festinger's term (1957) for the discomfort of holding contradictory beliefs. High-control groups exploit and resolve member dissonance through doctrine and ritual.
- ConfessionInformation
- Lifton's term for ritualised personal disclosure used by the group as both control material and ongoing leverage over the member.
- Confidence (CLCI)
- High / Medium / Low rating describing how much public documentation supports the group's score: court records and academic work (High), reputable journalism plus testimony (Medium), or fragmented anecdotal reports (Low).
- Covenant BreakerEmotional
- Bahá'í Faith status applied to those judged to have actively challenged the Universal House of Justice. Triggers mandatory shunning.
- See: Bahá'í Faith (mainstream)
- Cult
- Loaded popular term that this site avoids in favour of 'high-control group'. CLCI Hub never labels a group simply 'a cult'.
- Cult Pseudo-Identity
- Hassan's term for the constructed group identity that overlays a member's pre-cult authentic identity during high-control involvement.
- Cult-Aware TherapistEmotional
- A licensed mental-health professional with specific training in coercive-control recovery. ICSA maintains a directory.
- DeekshaInformation
- Oneness University's 'oneness blessing' energy transmission, promoted as triggering enlightenment.
- See: Oneness University (Sri Bhagavan / Sri Amma)
- Deep State (QAnon)Thought
- QAnon's framing of US government and global elite institutions as a hidden, coordinated, child-trafficking conspiracy.
- See: QAnon Movement
- Demand for PurityThought
- Lifton's term for absolutist standards (sin/sanctity, awakened/asleep) that create permanent feelings of inadequacy in members.
- Denomination
- An organised, named branch within a religious tradition (e.g. Reform Judaism, Methodism).
- Deprogramming
- Historical (1970s–80s) coercive practice of confining and re-educating cult members against their will. Now rejected by mainstream cult-recovery practitioners.
- DharmaThought
- Sanskrit term meaning 'duty', 'law', or 'teaching'. In Hindu and Buddhist contexts, the underlying order followed by ethical practice.
- DhikrBehavior
- Sufi devotional practice of remembrance / chanting.
- Diamond HandsBehavior
- Crypto / meme-stock slang for unwavering holding through losses. The phrase functions as a loyalty test in some online financial-cult communities.
- DisciplingBehavior
- ICOC practice of one-on-one mentor accountability that supervises dating, finances, and major life decisions.
- See: International Churches of Christ (ICOC / 'Boston Movement')
- DisconnectionEmotional
- Scientology's policy requiring members to sever contact with anyone designated a 'Suppressive Person' (SP) — including family.
- Disconnection OrderEmotional
- Scientology-internal directive requiring a member to sever contact with a specific person designated 'Suppressive'.
- See: Church of Scientology
- DisfellowshipEmotional
- Jehovah's Witnesses' shunning process. See also: shunning.
- See: Jehovah's Witnesses
- DisfellowshippingEmotional
- Jehovah's Witnesses' formal expulsion process. Disfellowshipped persons are shunned by all baptised members including immediate family.
- Dispensing of ExistenceEmotional
- Lifton's term for the group's claim to decide whose existence is meaningful: insiders vs. outsiders, faithful vs. apostates.
- Doctrine over PersonThought
- Lifton's eighth criterion: the group's doctrine takes precedence over a member's lived experience. When the two conflict, the doctrine is true and the experience is wrong.
- DoomscrollingEmotional
- Compulsive consumption of distressing online content. Frequently engineered as a hook by high-control online influencer communities.
- Dorje ShugdenInformation
- A Gelug Tibetan Buddhist deity practice the Dalai Lama discouraged in 1996. The dispute drove the formation of the New Kadampa Tradition.
- See: New Kadampa Tradition (NKT, Kelsang Gyatso)
- DOSBehavior
- NXIVM's secret women-only sub-group ('Dominus Obsequious Sororium') in which members were branded with founder Keith Raniere's initials.
- See: NXIVM-style Wellness Cults
- DoublethinkThought
- Orwell's term for holding contradictory beliefs simultaneously without recognising the contradiction. Frequently observed in long-term high-control members.
- DoxxingInformation
- Public release of a person's private identity / location, often used by online high-control communities to retaliate against critics.
- Ego State TherapyEmotional
- Therapeutic approach addressing distinct internal 'parts' of the self. Useful in recovery from cult pseudo-identity formation.
- Eight Criteria of Thought Reform
- Robert Jay Lifton's eight features of totalist environments (1961): milieu control, mystical manipulation, demand for purity, confession, sacred science, loading the language, doctrine over person, and dispensing of existence.
- EMDREmotional
- Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing — a trauma-processing therapy with growing evidence base for cult-survivor recovery.
- Emotional ControlEmotional
- Use of fear, guilt, love-bombing, phobias about leaving, and shunning to govern members. The fourth BITE category.
- EndogamyBehavior
- Marriage within a defined community. Common pattern in high-control groups and some mainstream traditions.
- Energy WorkBehavior
- Umbrella term for wellness practices manipulating subtle energies (Reiki, kundalini, etc.). Generally low-control; specific high-control variants exist.
- EschatologyThought
- Doctrine of last things / end times. Many high-control groups intensify member commitment via imminent-apocalypse teachings.
- Evidence Bullet
- Each BITE axis on a v3 group profile includes a fullBiteBreakdown with specific evidence bullets sourced from public materials.
- ExcommunicationEmotional
- Catholic Church formal censure removing access to sacraments. Less severe in everyday Catholic life than shunning practices in some other groups.
- Exit Counselling
- Voluntary, family-mediated process in which trained counsellors offer information and dialogue with current members. Modern alternative to coercive 'deprogramming'.
- Exmo / TBMThought
- Mormon online vocabulary: 'Exmo' for ex-Mormon; 'TBM' (true believing Mormon) for fully committed members.
- See: LDS Church (mainstream Mormonism)
- ExogamyBehavior
- Marriage outside one's community. Discouraged or forbidden by many high-control groups.
- FadedBehavior
- Jehovah's Witnesses term for those who quietly stop attending meetings without formal disassociation, hoping to retain family ties. Often imperfectly successful.
- Faith CrisisEmotional
- Period of intense doubt or doctrinal questioning that often precedes leaving a high-control religious group.
- Family MediationEmotional
- Trained facilitation of conversations between current members and concerned family. Often offered through ICSA-affiliated practitioners.
- Family of OriginEmotional
- The family one was born into. High-control groups often instruct members to sever or minimise contact.
- Fictive KinshipEmotional
- Deliberately constructed 'family' bonds within a group, replacing biological family ties. Common in high-CLCI communities.
- Flirty FishingBehavior
- Children of God / Family International practice (1976–1987) of using female members for sex-evangelism.
- See: Children of God / The Family International
- FloatingEmotional
- Recovery term for the dissociative episodes ex-members can experience when triggered by group-coded language or imagery.
- Footsteps
- New York-based organisation (founded 2003) supporting people who leave Haredi Judaism.
- See: Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Haredi), Satmar Hasidic
- Freedom of Mind Resource Center
- Steven Hassan's organisation providing BITE assessments, educational materials, and exit-counselling resources.
- Front GroupInformation
- An organisation operating under a distinct name and stated mission while serving recruitment or political purposes for a parent group.
- Front-stage / Back-stageInformation
- Goffman's term for the gap between a group's public-facing presentation and its internal reality. Most high-control groups maintain a sharp front-stage/back-stage divide.
- Generated metric
- All CLCI scores are computed transparently from B + I + T + E + modifier; no hidden weights or composite indices.
- Governing BodyInformation
- Jehovah's Witnesses' small leadership council in Warwick, NY, regarded by the organisation as the 'faithful and discreet slave' interpreting scripture.
- See: Jehovah's Witnesses
- GriftInformation
- Slang for monetised misinformation operations, often blurring with online high-control communities.
- Guru-Disciple RelationshipEmotional
- Asian religious model of personal teacher-student transmission. Healthy versions are common; high-control versions can produce documented abuse.
- GurukulaBehavior
- ISKCON's 1970s–80s residential boarding-school system, later acknowledged by ISKCON itself as the site of systematic child sexual abuse.
- See: ISKCON (Hare Krishna)
- HalakhaBehavior
- Jewish religious law. Treated as binding by Orthodox / Haredi communities; treated as evolving guidance by Conservative; treated as informative rather than binding by Reform.
- HeresyThought
- Departure from established doctrine while remaining within a tradition. Distinct from apostasy.
- Heuristic OverrideThought
- Recovery term for the cognitive habits high-control groups install — automatic responses (thought-stopping phrases, scripted prayer) that pre-empt independent reflection.
- High-Demand Religion
- Academic term for religious organisations requiring substantial commitments of time, money, and personal autonomy. Overlaps with but is broader than 'high-control'.
- HODLThought
- Crypto slang for refusing to sell during a price crash. Functionally similar to thought-stopping in religious high-control contexts.
- Holotropic BreathworkBehavior
- Stanislav Grof's intensive hyperventilation practice. Mainstream training is non-coercive; specific high-control facilitator communities have been documented.
- Houston Chronicle 'Abuse of Faith'
- 2019 Houston Chronicle investigation documenting 700+ Southern Baptist and Independent Fundamental Baptist abuse cases.
- See: Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB)
- HunEmotional
- Slang for the friendly-but-intrusive MLM recruitment-message style ('Hey hun!').
- ICSA
- International Cultic Studies Association — leading global organisation for cult-recovery research, conferences, and survivor support. icsahome.com.
- Identity ForeclosureThought
- Marcia's developmental term for committing to an identity (often a group identity) without exploration. Common entry pattern into high-control communities, especially in young adults.
- IFS (Internal Family Systems)Emotional
- Richard Schwartz's parts-based therapy model. Useful for working with the internal voices and self-states cult members internalise.
- Income Disclosure StatementInformation
- Required US filings showing actual MLM distributor earnings. Almost universally show median net earnings near zero or negative once costs are counted.
- IndoctrinationThought
- Sustained instruction in a worldview that discourages critical evaluation of its premises.
- Influencer CultInformation
- Loose 2020s term for parasocial high-control communities organised around a single online influencer (Telegram, YouTube, Substack, TikTok).
- Information BubbleInformation
- Algorithmic or community-enforced restriction of a member's information diet. Modern equivalent of older milieu-control practices.
- Information ControlInformation
- Censorship of outside sources, deception of members, insider/outsider information asymmetry, and surveillance. The second BITE category.
- Information DiseaseInformation
- Conway and Siegelman's term for the cognitive impairment they argued accompanied prolonged thought-reform exposure.
- KarmaThought
- The principle that actions produce future consequences for the actor. Central to Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh traditions.
- KashrutBehavior
- Jewish dietary laws (kosher). Strictly observed in Orthodox / Haredi communities; voluntarily observed across the spectrum.
- KhurujBehavior
- Tablighi Jamaat's preaching tours of 3 days, 40 days, or 4 months — significant disruptions to family and work life.
- See: Tablighi Jamaat
- LGATThought
- Large Group Awareness Training — multi-day intensive seminar format associated with est, Landmark Forum, Lifespring, and similar offerings.
- Light WorkerThought
- New Age identity term often deployed by high-control wellness teachers to flatter members.
- Loaded LanguageThought
- Lifton's term for insider jargon that ends discussion: phrases like 'apostate', 'worldly', 'awakened', or group-specific shorthand that signals correct alignment.
- Lost BoysBehavior
- Teenage boys expelled from FLDS communities, often on minor pretexts, to maintain polygamous marriage ratios for older men.
- See: FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)
- Lost Boys (FLDS)Behavior
- Teenage boys expelled from the FLDS community, often on minor pretexts, to maintain polygamous marriage ratios for older men.
- See: FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)
- Love-bombingEmotional
- Intense affection, attention, and flattery directed at new or wavering members — typically tapering off once commitment is secured.
- Loved-One ApproachEmotional
- Steven Hassan's Strategic Interaction Approach for engaging current members non-coercively. Replaces 1970s deprogramming.
- MahantaInformation
- Eckankar's title for the current 'Living Eck Master' — successor lineage from founder Paul Twitchell.
- See: Eckankar
- MahdiThought
- The expected eschatological deliverer in Islamic tradition. Shia Twelvers identify the Mahdi with the Twelfth Imam in Occultation; Ahmadiyya identify their founder as the Mahdi.
- See: Mainstream Shia Islam (Twelver), Ahmadiyya Muslim Community
- Manifestation BypassEmotional
- Wellness-cult variant of spiritual bypass where 'manifesting' or 'high vibration' is used to dismiss a member's negative experiences as their own fault.
- ManifestingThought
- New Age teaching that thoughts and intentions causally produce material outcomes. Often weaponised in high-control wellness contexts to blame members for negative outcomes.
- MeidungEmotional
- Amish formal shunning of baptised members who leave; includes refusal of family contact and shared meals.
- Milieu ControlInformation
- Lifton's term for the regulation of all communication within a group — what is said, by whom, on what topics.
- MillenarianismThought
- Belief in an imminent, dramatic transformation of society. Common in high-control religious movements (Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventism, Branch Davidians).
- Mind AlignmentThought
- Twin Flames Universe's proprietary high-priced advanced course series.
- See: Twin Flames Universe (Jeff and Shaleia Divine)
- MLM (Multi-Level Marketing)Behavior
- Direct-sales business model paying commissions on the sales of those a distributor recruits. FTC research consistently finds most participants lose money.
- Mo LettersInformation
- David 'Moses' Berg's instructional letters to the Children of God / Family International. Some included explicit endorsement of child-sexual contact (1980s).
- See: Children of God / The Family International
- Modifier (CLCI)Modifier
- A signed adjustment (-5 to +5) applied to the BITE total to account for financial demands, leadership accountability, shunning, documented harm, and exit costs.
- MortificationBehavior
- Public humiliation rituals — confession, criticism sessions, pubic shaming — used to break down the pre-existing identity.
- Moshiach (Meshichist)Thought
- Hebrew for 'Messiah'. The Meshichist faction of Chabad explicitly identifies the late Rebbe Schneerson as the awaited Moshiach.
- See: Chabad-Lubavitch
- MurliInformation
- Brahma Kumaris' daily teachings, transmitted by senior mediums and believed to come from the late founder Brahma Baba.
- See: Brahma Kumaris (BKWSU)
- Mystical ManipulationInformation
- Lifton's term for staged 'spontaneous' events designed to look like supernatural confirmation of the leader's authority.
- New Religious Movement (NRM)
- Academic term for religious movements emerging since the 19th century. Used in scholarship instead of the loaded label 'cult'.
- Number Go Up TheologyThought
- Tongue-in-cheek term for the quasi-religious certainty in some crypto communities that price will inevitably rise indefinitely.
- Open Minds Foundation
- UK-based charity providing education on coercive control across high-control groups, abusive relationships, and online radicalisation.
- Operation Snow White
- 1977 FBI raid that uncovered Scientology infiltration of US government agencies. 11 senior Scientologists were convicted.
- See: Church of Scientology
- OT LevelsInformation
- Scientology's upper-level confidential teachings (Operating Thetan I–VIII), released sequentially after substantial fees and progress through lower levels.
- See: Church of Scientology
- OTD (Off the Derech)
- Yiddish-Hebrew term ('off the path') for those who leave Haredi Judaism. Footsteps and Hillel are the main support organisations.
- See: Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Haredi), Satmar Hasidic
- Patreon PipelineBehavior
- Common modern monetisation funnel: free public content → membership tiers → high-priced retreats / cohorts. Where many online high-control communities extract financial commitment.
- Personality CultThought
- An organisation in which veneration of a single leader becomes the central practice.
- PFALInformation
- 'Power for Abundant Living' — The Way International's foundational paid Bible-study course.
- See: The Way International
- Phobia IndoctrinationEmotional
- Vivid teaching of catastrophic outcomes for those who leave (eternal damnation, mental collapse, ruin). Designed to make exit psychologically unthinkable.
- PIMI / PIMO / POMOThought
- Jehovah's Witnesses online vocabulary: Physically In, Mentally In / Physically In, Mentally Out / Physically Out, Mentally Out.
- See: Jehovah's Witnesses
- Plan (MLM)Thought
- MLM term for the recruitment-and-product compensation structure. Often presented as a path to wealth that statistically the great majority do not achieve.
- Plant-Medicine SacramentInformation
- Reframing of psychedelic substances as 'medicine' in many wellness circles — often used to defuse safeguarding concerns.
- Plural MarriageBehavior
- Polygamous marriage doctrine maintained by fundamentalist Mormon offshoots after the mainstream LDS Church abandoned it in 1890.
- See: FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), Apostolic United Brethren (AUB)
- Polyvagal TheoryEmotional
- Stephen Porges's framework on the autonomic nervous system. Increasingly referenced in cult-recovery clinical work for trauma reintegration.
- Pray-readingThought
- Local Church / Living Stream Ministry meeting practice of repeated emphatic reading of Bible verses, often described by visitors as inducing altered states.
- See: Local Church (Witness Lee / Living Stream Ministry)
- Pre-Clear (PC) FolderInformation
- Scientology auditing file containing a member's recorded confessions. Repeatedly alleged to have been used as leverage against members in disputes.
- See: Church of Scientology
- PsychoeducationInformation
- Clinical practice of providing factual information about a condition or experience. The first stage of most cult-recovery work — ICSA's BITE-Model materials are a textbook example.
- Pyramid SchemeBehavior
- Business model in which most participants pay in and almost none recoup costs, with revenue flowing up the recruitment chain. FTC distinguishes between MLM and pyramid scheme by retail-vs-recruitment income mix.
- Q DropsInformation
- Anonymous posts (2017–2022) from the QAnon 'Q' source on 4chan and 8chan / 8kun, treated by believers as authoritative insider revelations.
- See: QAnon Movement
- QAnon Casualties
- Reddit community (r/QAnonCasualties) where family members of QAnon believers share experiences and seek support.
- See: QAnon Movement
- ReceiptsInformation
- Online accountability term for screenshots and primary sources. CLCI Hub follows the receipts-only convention.
- Recovery Resource
- v3 group profiles include curated links to recovery organisations relevant to ex-members of that specific group.
- RecruitmentBehavior
- The process by which a group brings in new members. High-control recruitment often hides organisational identity initially (compare front groups).
- Red-PillingThought
- Matrix-derived metaphor for sudden ideological awakening. Used across QAnon, manosphere, and some online religious communities to frame conversion.
- ReframingThought
- Cognitive technique used both helpfully (in therapy) and harmfully (in high-control groups) to reinterpret experiences within a preferred framework.
- Reintegration
- The process of re-establishing relationships, work, finances, and identity after leaving a high-control group.
- Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS)Emotional
- Marlene Winell's term for the cluster of symptoms (anxiety, dissociation, identity disruption) sometimes seen after exiting a high-control religious environment.
- RFRG (Recovering From Religion)
- US-based support organisation for people leaving religion, with peer support helpline and meeting network.
- Rug PullInformation
- Crypto term for an organised exit-scam in which insiders cash out and abandon the project, leaving retail investors with worthless tokens.
- Sacred ScienceThought
- Lifton's term for treating the group's worldview as both completely sacred and completely scientific — a single ultimate framework that cannot be questioned.
- SamayaEmotional
- Tantric oath of commitment to one's guru. Has produced documented vulnerability to teacher abuse in some Western Tibetan Buddhist contexts.
- See: Tibetan Buddhism (mainstream), New Kadampa Tradition (NKT, Kelsang Gyatso)
- SanghaBehavior
- The Buddhist community of monastics, or sometimes the broader practitioner community.
- SannyasinBehavior
- Rajneesh / Osho movement term for an initiated 'renunciate'. Members took new names and (originally) wore orange robes.
- See: Rajneesh / Osho Movement
- SchismInformation
- A formal split within a religious tradition producing distinct successor groups.
- Sea OrgBehavior
- Scientology's elite religious order whose members sign billion-year contracts and report extremely long working weeks for nominal pay.
- See: Church of Scientology
- Sea Org CadetBehavior
- Children raised in Scientology's Sea Org organisation, historically subject to documented limited education and labour conditions.
- See: Church of Scientology
- Sect
- Sociological term for a religious group that has broken from a larger established body. Less pejorative than 'cult' in academic usage.
- Seed FaithBehavior
- Word of Faith / Prosperity Gospel teaching that financial gifts to a ministry produce divine financial returns to the giver.
- See: Word of Faith / Prosperity Gospel networks
- Set & SettingBehavior
- Leary's term for the preparation, intent, and environment of a psychedelic experience. High-control facilitators often weaponise set-and-setting framing to displace responsibility for harm.
- ShabbatBehavior
- Jewish Sabbath, sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Strictly observed in Haredi and Modern Orthodox communities.
- ShakubukuBehavior
- Aggressive door-to-door conversion campaigning historically associated with Soka Gakkai's 1950s–60s expansion in Japan.
- See: Soka Gakkai International (SGI)
- Shelf (Faith Shelf)Information
- Metaphor used by Mormons and other high-demand-religion members for accumulating uncomfortable facts that 'sit on a shelf' until the shelf collapses, triggering a faith crisis.
- See: LDS Church (mainstream Mormonism)
- Shepherding MovementBehavior
- 1970s charismatic-Christian movement teaching personal-pastor 'covering' authority over disciples. Disowned by founders in the 1980s but its template persists.
- See: Evangelical Megachurches (high-control variants), International Churches of Christ (ICOC / 'Boston Movement'), Maranatha Campus Ministries (defunct, 1972–89)
- ShunningEmotional
- Formal severance of social and family contact with members who leave or violate doctrine. Examples: disfellowshipping (JW), Meidung (Amish), disconnection (Scientology).
- SLAPP LawsuitInformation
- Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation — a defamation or related action filed primarily to silence critics. Several CLCI Hub-listed groups have used them.
- Snap-backEmotional
- Recovery term for moments after exit when ex-members involuntarily revert to cult-era thinking under stress.
- Snapping
- Conway and Siegelman's 1978 term for sudden personality change observed in some thought-reform contexts.
- Snyder v. Phelps
- 2011 US Supreme Court case upholding Westboro Baptist Church's First Amendment right to picket military funerals.
- See: Westboro Baptist Church
- Spectrum of Control
- The CLCI's core editorial principle: groups exist on a continuum from low-control / mainstream to destructive / extreme — never as binary 'cult' / 'not cult'.
- Spiritual BypassEmotional
- John Welwood's term for using spiritual ideas and practices to avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, or developmental tasks.
- Spiritual WifeBehavior
- Polygamous-sect term for additional unmarried-by-civil-law sexual partners of a male member or leader.
- See: FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), LeBaron clan polygamist groups, The Source Family (Father Yod / James Edward Baker)
- Stages of ChangeEmotional
- Prochaska & DiClemente's framework. Family members of high-control-group members benefit from understanding that exit usually unfolds over many months.
- Stochastic TerrorismInformation
- Pattern in which broadcast incitement statistically produces violence by individual followers without explicit direction. Documented in some high-control political-religious online communities.
- Strategic Interaction Approach (SIA)
- Steven Hassan's non-coercive family-mediation methodology for engaging with current members of high-control groups.
- Sudarshan KriyaBehavior
- Art of Living Foundation's flagship multi-day breathing intensive.
- See: Art of Living Foundation (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar)
- Suppressive Person (SP)Information
- Scientology designation for a person — often a critic, journalist, or family member of an ex-Scientologist — who must be disconnected from by members in good standing.
- See: Church of Scientology
- Sweet (FLDS)Emotional
- FLDS internal vocabulary urging women and children to remain emotionally compliant under abusive conditions ('keep sweet').
- See: FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)
- TakfirThought
- The act of declaring fellow Muslims unbelievers. Used by extreme high-control sub-currents to enforce conformity; rejected by the Sunni and Shia mainstream.
- See: Salafist Islam (high-control sub-branches), ISIS / 'Islamic State' ideology (recruitment networks)
- The StormThought
- QAnon's apocalyptic event in which the Deep State will be exposed and destroyed. Repeatedly predicted and reset.
- See: QAnon Movement
- Theocracy
- Government by religious leaders and laws. Many high-control groups operate internally as theocracies even within secular states.
- Thought ControlThought
- Loaded language, black-and-white categories, treating doubt as a moral failing, and framing the group's worldview as the only legitimate reality. The third BITE category.
- Thought-StoppingThought
- Practices (chanting, glossolalia, repeated affirmation, scripted prayer) that members use to short-circuit doubts before they fully form.
- TitheBehavior
- 10% of income given to a religious organisation. In high-control settings, sometimes tied to access to ritual or salvation.
- Tools (MLM)Information
- Books, recordings, seminars, and tickets that downline distributors are pressured to buy from their upline. The actual profit margin in many high-control MLMs.
- Totalism
- Lifton's term for environments that seek total control over members' inner and outer life.
- Touch Not the Lord's AnointedInformation
- Phrase (1 Chronicles 16:22) deployed in some high-control Christian contexts to insulate senior leaders from accountability.
- See: Evangelical Megachurches (high-control variants), Word of Faith / Prosperity Gospel networks
- Toxic PositivityEmotional
- Forced optimism that suppresses legitimate negative emotions. A common control mechanism in wellness and online high-control communities.
- TriggersEmotional
- Sensory or social cues that re-activate cult-era thought patterns or emotional states. Common in recovery.
- Truth MovementInformation
- Umbrella term used by various conspiratorial communities (9/11 Truth, Q, anti-vax, flat-earth) — high-control variants exist within several of them.
- TulkuInformation
- A reincarnated lineage holder in Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama and Karmapa are tulkus.
- See: Tibetan Buddhism (mainstream)
- Twin FlameThought
- Twin Flames Universe doctrine that each person has one pre-destined romantic partner. Used to coach members into pursuing uninterested or hostile 'twins'.
- See: Twin Flames Universe (Jeff and Shaleia Divine)
- TzniusBehavior
- Haredi modesty regime governing dress and gender interaction — strictest in the most insular sects.
- See: Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Haredi), Satmar Hasidic
- Updateable Score
- CLCI scores are editorial assessments based on current evidence. They are revised when new evidence emerges or when groups undergo documented institutional change.
- Upline / DownlineBehavior
- MLM hierarchy terms — the recruiter chain above (upline) and the recruited chain below (downline). The upline is the actual profit centre in many MLMs.
- VanguardThought
- NXIVM's title for founder Keith Raniere, marketed as the smartest man alive.
- See: NXIVM-style Wellness Cults
- VibrationThought
- Wellness-cult vocabulary item — 'low vibration' often used as a pejorative for outsiders or doubters.
- Vow of Poverty (cult sense)Behavior
- Many high-control groups require members to surrender personal income or assets to the community. Distinct from voluntary religious vows in mainstream monastic traditions.
- WangInformation
- Tantric empowerment ritual in Tibetan Buddhism. Creates a binding student-teacher relationship under samaya.
- See: Tibetan Buddhism (mainstream)
- White NightEmotional
- Peoples Temple's name for mass-suicide rehearsals at Jonestown — the practice that culminated in the actual 1978 deaths.
- See: Peoples Temple (Jim Jones / Jonestown)
- Wim Hof MethodBehavior
- Cold-exposure-and-breathing practice with a global following. Most participants experience no high-control dynamics; specific high-priced franchise sub-communities warrant scrutiny.
- Wisconsin v. Yoder
- 1972 US Supreme Court case granting Amish parents the right to limit their children's formal schooling at age 14.
- See: Amish (Old Order)
- Word of FaithThought
- Theological movement teaching positive confession and seed-faith giving. Critics document financial exploitation patterns.
- See: Word of Faith / Prosperity Gospel networks
- Word over the World (WOW)Behavior
- The Way International's residential evangelism corps requiring multi-year commitment.
- See: The Way International
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Educational only. Definitions are written for general readers. For clinical, legal, or academic precision, consult the cited sources and ICSA.