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Cults have another attribute: a mechanism for addicting members and keeping them, usually through psychological means.

So, Catholicism's / baptists / etc. hell, the Jehovah's Witnesses everlasting destruction, Mormon / Jehovah's Witness / Amish excommunication... ad nauseum.

Its literally every one of the the large religions.

Those are really passive techniques. Cults have active, planned techniques of mind control. Try this: http://www.scribd.com/doc/514598/How-Cults-Seduce

I was a Jehovah's Witness and since leaving three years ago I have been struggling to differentiate between cult tactics and the control tactics of that particular religion.

JW tactics are definitely taken from the cult playbook.

Any group that exists more than briefly has a mechanism for drawing and keeping members that, necessarily, operates "through psychological means".

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