Various Mormon-fundamentalist polygamist groups (umbrella)
Umbrella for various Mormon-fundamentalist polygamist groups beyond named entries (FLDS, Kingston, AUB, LeBaron) — Centennial Park Group, TLC Independents, etc.
CLCI radar
BITE breakdown
+1 for documented polygamy and child-marriage patterns across multiple groups.
Profile facts
In context
Beyond the major named organisations profiled separately (the FLDS, the Kingston Order, the Apostolic United Brethren, the LeBaron network, and the TLC at Manti), Mormon fundamentalism comprises a wider field this umbrella entry documents: organised communities such as Centennial Park (the 'Second Ward' that split from the FLDS lineage in the 1980s), the Righteous Branch (Gerald Peterson's succession claim), the Nielsen/Naylor group, Bountiful in British Columbia (the Canadian community whose leaders' 2017–18 polygamy convictions tested Canada's law), and the Mexican colonies outside LeBaron control — plus the field's statistical majority: independent fundamentalist families practising plural marriage without organisational membership.
The common doctrinal root is the 1890/1904 Manifesto crisis: fundamentalists hold that the LDS Church's abandonment of plural marriage forfeited its authority, preserved instead through a claimed 1886 commission by church president John Taylor to sustain 'the Principle'. Every organised group descends from rival readings of that priesthood-council lineage, which is why succession disputes — who holds the keys — are the field's recurring schism engine, documented from the 1950s Short Creek splits to the present.
Scale estimates in the scholarly and law-enforcement literature (the Utah and Arizona attorneys general published joint primers during the 2000s prosecutions) place the total fundamentalist population at roughly 35,000–50,000, most in the Intermountain West, with organised groups accounting for well under half. Control intensity varies enormously across that field — the point of this umbrella's moderate-to-high composite score: Centennial Park operates with visible moderation (public schooling, media engagement) relative to the FLDS baseline, while smaller patriarchal clans reproduce the full closed-community pattern (arranged plural marriages of minors in the prosecuted cases, expulsion economics for surplus young men, consecration of members' property) at family scale, where it is hardest to document and to leave. The independent majority, by definition unorganised, ranges from consenting adult networks to the isolated households that surface in the region's periodic abuse prosecutions. Entries for the named groups carry the specific records; this umbrella registers the field's shared doctrine, demography, and the documented spectrum of its mechanics.
Recovery resources
- Holding Out Help (Utah) — Utah-based direct services for Mormon-fundamentalist exits — applicable across the named groups and smaller branches in this umbrella.
- Sound Choices Coalition — Ex-FLDS-founded advocacy supporting women and children leaving fundamentalist polygamous communities.
- Cherish Families — Support for families and children from fundamentalist polygamist groups; Utah / Arizona focus.
- ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association) — General referral and cult-aware therapist directory.
- Freedom of Mind Resource Center — Steven Hassan's organisation; family-side exit guidance and BITE-model resources.
See the full curated list at /resources.
Evidence by BITE axis
- Polygamous practice
- Some sub-currents involve child marriages
- +1 for documented polygamy and child-marriage patterns across multiple groups
Lifton's 8 criteria of thought reform
Robert Jay Lifton's 1961 framework, complementary to BITE. Criteria this group exhibits according to the cited sources.
- Demand for PuritySharp world split into pure vs impure; relentless pressure to conform to an absolute standard.
Timeline
- 1929+Mormon-fundamentalist movement
Evidence matrix
Structured sources cross-linked to the claims they document. Tiered per the source hierarchy. For free-text citations see the Sources section below.
Sources
- Janet Bennion academic work search ↗
- THE MORMON CULTURE REGION: STRATEGIES AND PATTERNS IN THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE AMERICAN WEST, 1847–1964 — Annals of the Association of American Geographers (1965) — https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1467-8306.1965.tb00515.x open ↗
- Divine–human transformations — An Introduction to Mormonism (2003) — https://doi.org/10.1017%2FCBO9780511610028.004 open ↗
- Mormonism — Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion (2015) — https://doi.org/10.1093%2Facrefore%2F9780199340378.013.75 open ↗
- Premortal Life — https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Premortal_Life open ↗
- Omnipotent God; Omnipresence of God; Omniscience of God — https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Omnipotent_God;_Omnipresence_of_God;_Omniscience_of_God open ↗
- Chapter Two. The Americanization of Adam — Cargo Cults and Millenarian Movements (1990) — https://doi.org/10.1515%2F9783110874419.97 open ↗
- Chosen Land, Chosen People: Religious and American Exceptionalism Among the Mormons — https://doi.org/10.1080%2F15570274.2012.682511 open ↗
- “A Seer Shall the Lord My God Raise Up”: The Prophet and the Plates — By the Hand of Mormon (2002) — https://doi.org/10.1093%2F019513818X.003.0002 open ↗
- 6. The Basis of Mormon Success — The Rise of Mormonism (2005) — https://doi.org/10.7312%2Fstar13634-006 open ↗
- The New (and Old) Religions Around Us — http://www.luthersem.edu/lifelong_learning/layschool/handouts/New%20and%20Old%20Religions%20Slides%20Session%204.pdf open ↗
- Is Mormonism Christian? — http://www.mbts.edu/2011/10/is-mormonism-christian/ open ↗
- The Web of Membership: The Consonance and Conflict of Being American and Latter-Day Saint — https://www.jstor.org/stable/1051487 open ↗
- The Web of Membership: The Consonance and Conflict of Being American and Latter-Day Saint — Journal of Law and Religion (1998) — https://doi.org/10.2307%2F1051487 open ↗
- BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies — http://ce.byu.edu/jc/ open ↗
- Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition. By Jan Shipps. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1985. 211 pp. $14.50 — https://doi.org/10.1093/jcs/29.1.148 open ↗
- Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition. By Jan Shipps. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1985. 211 pp. $14.50 — Journal of Church and State (1987) — https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fjcs%2F29.1.148 open ↗
- Forum: Contemporary Mormonism: America's Most Successful "New Religion — https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/religion-and-american-culture/article/abs/forum-contemporary-mormonism-americas-most-successful-new-religion/9FD0C234E595D9617C5AE02A7A38DC4E open ↗
- Forum: Contemporary Mormonism: America's Most Successful “New Religion” — Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation (2013) — https://doi.org/10.1525%2Frac.2013.23.1.1 open ↗
- The Peculiar Mormon Paradox — http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=3772&index=3 open ↗
- The Peculiar Mormon Paradox — Mormon Studies Review (2017) — https://doi.org/10.18809%2Fmsr.2017.0103 open ↗
- Mormons seek distance from polygamous sects — https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25396937 open ↗
- The Persistence of Mormon Plural Marriage — Dialogue: a Journal of Mormon Thought (2011) — https://doi.org/10.5406%2Fdialjmormthou.44.4.0043 open ↗
- The History and Culture of Mormon Fundamentalism in the United States — https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-52616-0_26 open ↗
- Fundamentalism in American Religion and Law: Obama’s Challenge to Patriarchy’s Threat to Democracy — https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/fundamentalism-in-american-religion-and-law/mormon-fundamentalism/1F6F55779159F7C83AB8DCB3E5166251 open ↗
- History of Joseph Smith — http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/u?/NCMP1820-1846,9825 open ↗
- THE TRANSFORMATION OF MORMON THEOLOGY — Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (1970) — https://doi.org/10.2307%2F45224197 open ↗
- Post-Modern Joseph Smith: Faith and Irony — https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/487673 open ↗
- Post-Modern Joseph Smith: Faith and Irony — The Hopkins Review (2012) — https://doi.org/10.1353%2Fthr.2012.0074 open ↗
- In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death — https://academic.oup.com/book/8938 open ↗
- In Heaven as It Is on EarthJoseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death (2012) — https://doi.org/10.1093%2Facprof%3Aoso%2F9780199793570.001.0001 open ↗
- Just How "Scandalous" is the Golden Plates Story? Academic Discourse on the Origin of the Book of Mormon — https://www.jstor.org/stable/43200239 open ↗
- History and the Claims of Revelation: Joseph Smith and the Materialization of the Golden Plates — NUMEN (2014) — https://doi.org/10.1163%2F15685276-12341315 open ↗
- Religions: Mormonism — https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/mormon/index.shtml open ↗
- A Religious History of the American People — https://doi.org/10.2307/2936335 open ↗
- A Religious History of the American People — The Journal of American History (1973) — https://dx.doi.org/10.2307%2F2936335 open ↗
- Mormonism, An Independent Interpretation - The Encyclopedia of Mormonism — https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Mormonism,_An_Independent_Interpretation open ↗
- Cultural Mormons' Adjust The Lifestyle But Keep The Label — https://www.npr.org/2016/08/28/490116191/cultural-mormons-adjust-the-lifestyle-but-keep-the-label open ↗
- History & Culture - Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail (U.S. National Park Service) — https://www.nps.gov/mopi/learn/historyculture/index.htm open ↗
- Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail: History & Culture — http://www.nps.gov/mopi/historyculture/index.htm open ↗
- A Religious History of the American People — The Journal of American History (1973) — https://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2936335 open ↗
- Divine–human transformations — An Introduction to Mormonism (2003) — https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511610028.004 open ↗
- lire en ligne — https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/God_the_Father open ↗
- Mormonism — Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion (2015) — https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.75 open ↗
- Joseph Smith III and the Kirtland Temple Suit — https://byustudies.byu.edu/PDFLibrary/25.3LauniusJoseph-cf4da71f-38f0-45df-833e-31ccadee3fa9.pdf open ↗
- contentdm.lib.byu.edu — https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/NCMP1820-1846/id/5889 open ↗
- The Significance of Joseph Smith’s First Vision in Mormon Thought, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. — http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/dialogue&CISOPTR=3783&CISOSHOW=3611 open ↗
- contentdm.lib.byu.edu — https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/EoM/id/5636 open ↗
- Official House Resolution HR0793 (LRB093 21726 KEF 49525 r). — https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?GAID=3&SessionID=3&GA=93&DocTypeID=HR&DocNum=0793&LegID=12984&SpecSess=&Session= open ↗
- Determining the Facts – Reading 1: The Mormon Years. — https://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/122fort/122facts1.htm open ↗
- The Mormon Corridor — Pacific Historical Review (1939) — https://doi.org/10.2307/3633392 open ↗
- Welsh Mormon History. — http://welshmormon.byu.edu/Default.aspx open ↗
- contentdm.lib.byu.edu — https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/NCMP1820-1846/id/17334 open ↗
- contentdm.lib.byu.edu — https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/BYUIBooks/id/3317 open ↗
- Mormons seek distance from polygamous sects. — http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25396937/ns/us_news-faith/t/mormons-seek-distance-polygamist-sects open ↗
- Building a bigger tent: Does Mormonism have a Mitt Romney problem? — https://www.economist.com/united-states/2012/02/25/building-a-bigger-tent open ↗
- The Consequential Dimension of Mormon Religiosity. — https://rsc.byu.edu/latter-day-saint-social-life/consequential-dimension-mormon-religiosity open ↗
- The Consequential Dimension of Mormon Religiosity. — http://rsc.byu.edu/archived/latter-day-saint-social-life-social-research-lds-church-and-its-members/8-consequential-dim open ↗
- Anna LeBaron: How I escaped my father's murderous polygamous cult — https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38526255 open ↗
- Divine–human transformations — An Introduction to Mormonism (2003) — https://dx.doi.org/10.1017%2FCBO9780511610028.004 open ↗
- Mormonism — Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion (2015) — https://dx.doi.org/10.1093%2Facrefore%2F9780199340378.013.75 open ↗
- Chapter Two. The Americanization of Adam — Cargo Cults and Millenarian Movements (1990) — https://dx.doi.org/10.1515%2F9783110874419.97 open ↗
- CHOSEN LAND, CHOSEN PEOPLE: RELIGIOUS AND AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM AMONG THE MORMONS — The Review of Faith & International Affairs (2012) — https://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2F15570274.2012.682511 open ↗
- “A Seer Shall the Lord My God Raise Up”: The Prophet and the Plates — By the Hand of Mormon (2002) — https://dx.doi.org/10.1093%2F019513818X.003.0002 open ↗
- 6. The Basis of Mormon Success — The Rise of Mormonism (2005) — https://dx.doi.org/10.7312%2Fstar13634-006 open ↗
- A Comparison of Muhammad and Joseph Smith in the Prophetic Pattern — http://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/1176/ open ↗
- “U.S. Muslims and Mormons share deepening ties” — https://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/02/local/me-morlims2 open ↗
- Encyclopedia of Mormonism — http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Godhead open ↗
- “Mormons seek distance from polygamous sects” — https://www.nbcnews.com/id/25396937 open ↗
- McConkie, Bruce R. The Seven Deadly Heresies (речь в университете BYU 1.06.1980). — http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=6770 open ↗
We cite sources by name and outlet rather than fabricating links. Where a source includes its own URL, the open ↗ link opens it directly; otherwise search ↗ runs a Google Scholar query for the cited title — useful for verifying academic sources. For news outlets, search the outlet's own archive.
Change history
Substantive edits logged per the score-updates policy.
- 2026-08-07Audit O1 tranche: body expanded from a ~330-char stub to a full documented narrative; facts per the entry's existing source base.
- 2026-05-22Phase 1 Batch A: per-group recovery resources curated. Added 5 verified entries tailored to Mormon-fundamentalist exits across the umbrella's named-but-not-individually-listed groups (Centennial Park, TLC, independents).
- 2026-05-20Source-density flags derived from existing free-text sources[]: academic sources. Heuristic auto-flag; subsequent editorial pass will populate structuredSources[] with reliability tiers.
- 2026-05-20Score band scheme migrated from 4 bands to 5 (Minimal 0–5 / Low 6–12 / Moderate 13–20 / High 21–30 / Extreme 31–40). No CLCI value changed; the new Minimal band was carved out of the bottom of the previous Low band.
Key terms in this profile
Relevant hubs
Curated entry points on CLCI Hub for situations connected to this group.
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Frequently asked questions
Q.Is Various Mormon-fundamentalist polygamist groups a cult?
CLCI Hub deliberately avoids the binary label "cult." Instead it places groups on a transparent 0–40 spectrum of documented control using Steven Hassan's BITE model (Behaviour, Information, Thought, Emotional). Various Mormon-fundamentalist polygamist groups scores 30 out of 40 — "High Control", at medium confidence. The score describes documented control patterns, not a judgement of members' sincerity or beliefs; many members do not personally experience the patterns listed.
Q.What is Various Mormon-fundamentalist polygamist groups's CLCI score?
Various Mormon-fundamentalist polygamist groups scores 30 out of 40 on the Cult-Like Control Index, which falls in the "High" band. That total is the sum of four BITE axes — Behaviour 8, Information 7, Thought 7, Emotional 7 — plus a signed modifier of +1 for aggravating or mitigating factors.
Q.Why does Various Mormon-fundamentalist polygamist groups score 30 on the CLCI?
The score reflects publicly documented patterns including: Polygamous practice; Some sub-currents involve child marriages. These map onto the BITE axes of behaviour, information, thought, and emotional control, and a signed modifier of +1 is applied for factors such as financial demands, leadership accountability, and exit costs. Every claim is backed by the citations in the Sources section on this page.
Q.How reliable is the Various Mormon-fundamentalist polygamist groups rating?
This profile is rated Medium confidence. Medium confidence means the score rests on reputable journalism plus consistent ex-member testimony. CLCI scores are not fixed — they are revised whenever new public evidence appears, and groups that reform can score lower over time.
Q.Where can I get help regarding Various Mormon-fundamentalist polygamist groups?
If you or someone you care about is affected by Various Mormon-fundamentalist polygamist groups, start with the Recovery resources listed on this page. General cult-aware support is available from the International Cultic Studies Association (icsahome.com) and the Freedom of Mind Resource Center (freedomofmind.com). CLCI Hub is an educational resource, not a crisis service — if anyone is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services.
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