Rating: 
Summary: A menace to society
Review: Cults in our Midst casts light onto a mysterious subject: cults. Many people hold misconceptions about cults, myths that make most people vulnerable to their influence. The common stereotype about cults is that they are religious and that only uneducated or mentally weak people join cults. Singer's book shatters these misconceptions. Although religious cults have made headline news in the past several decades, the reality is that cults can and do form around secular and mundane issues. There are cults forming around physical fitness, psychiatry, psychology, philosophy, dieting, etc. Furthermore, cult members are usually well educated members of the middle-class. Some cult members were college students, university professors, doctors, and lawyers.What is a cult? Singer defines a cult as an organization that utilizes all of its resources for the betterment of the group's leader or upper echelons at the expense of the members. The leader dictates the activities of the members. The leader employs subtle psychological and physiological persuasion techniques such as visual imagery and restrictive dieting to deceive, manipulate, and abuse followers. Singer argues that everyone is susceptible to a cult. Contrary to popular belief, cult recruiters behave friendly and courteously to potential recruits. Recruiters often entice victims by seemingly able to satisfy the latter's desires, whether they be religious, political, idealistic, or others. Singer's book also focuses on the relationship between cults and the outside world, on how cultic members can leave cults, and the effects of cultic influence on former members after leaving cults. Contrary to some critics of this book, Singer does not regard all new religious movements and organizations as cultic. This book does not disparage new ideas. Rather this book serves to warn people to be cautious about joining groups. Cults in our Midst is a must read for everyone. Singer's book exposes the myriad practices of cults to alert people to their influence and to enable them to detect when a seemingly innocuous group is a cult. Almost every former cult member regretted joining a cult because they wasted many years of their lives satisfying the needs of a greedy leader. Another good book on cults is entitled Shurangama Sutra: Fifty Skandha Demon States.
Rating:
Summary: What Makes Cults Tick?
Review: Cults use motivational psychology to create closed controlling environments where cult members have little opportunity for free thinking. Societal organizations such as the advertising and sales industries, schools, and governmental organizations also use motivational psychology, but these organizations exert less control over members' lives. Some cults control *all* aspects of their members' lives, including where members work and live, members' social companions, members' sexual companions (if any), and even when members can use the bathroom. Cults achieve complete control through a program of deliberate isolation plus psychological reward and punishment. Cult members mechanically serve the cult leadership's goals and fantasies, often accumulating money, wealth and power for the cult leadership. Professor Singer is a psychologist with over fifty years of research and clinical experience, and her collaborator Janja Lalich is a former cult member. Together they have produced a well-written text describing 'What Are Cults' and 'How Do They Work'. This very readable text is filled with specific examples describing how cults affect their membership, and examples describing the obstacles that former cult members face if they return to overall society. The discussion describes the use and effects of extreme motivational psychology within cults. The discussion also assists understanding motivational psychology use and effects within overall society. "Cults In Our Midst: ..." was written in 1995. Since 1995 the United States' sexual mores (reflected by the entertainment media) have liberalized, sexually transmitted disease has increased, and societal affluence has lessened. If this text was revised in 2003, I believe that additional discussion of (lack of, or unconventional) sexuality and (lack of) food as motivators and punishment would be warranted.
Rating:
Summary: What Makes Cults Tick?
Review: Cults use motivational psychology to create closed controlling environments where cult members have little opportunity for free thinking. Societal organizations such as the advertising and sales industries, schools, and governmental organizations also use motivational psychology, but these organizations exert less control over members' lives. Some cults control *all* aspects of their members' lives, including where members work and live, members' social companions, members' sexual companions (if any), and even when members can use the bathroom. Cults achieve complete control through a program of deliberate isolation plus psychological reward and punishment. Cult members mechanically serve the cult leadership's goals and fantasies, often accumulating money, wealth and power for the cult leadership. Professor Singer is a psychologist with over fifty years of research and clinical experience, and her collaborator Janja Lalich is a former cult member. Together they have produced a well-written text describing 'What Are Cults' and 'How Do They Work'. This very readable text is filled with specific examples describing how cults affect their membership, and examples describing the obstacles that former cult members face if they return to overall society. The discussion describes the use and effects of extreme motivational psychology within cults. The discussion also assists understanding motivational psychology use and effects within overall society. "Cults In Our Midst: ..." was written in 1995. Since 1995 the United States' sexual mores (reflected by the entertainment media) have liberalized, sexually transmitted disease has increased, and societal affluence has lessened. If this text was revised in 2003, I believe that additional discussion of (lack of, or unconventional) sexuality and (lack of) food as motivators and punishment would be warranted.
Rating:
Summary: hmm...
Review: Dr. Singer has written a very valuable resource for all readers who are interested in cults, who have a loved one in a cult, or who, like myself -- ended up being greatly deceived by a cult. Dr. Singer was supportive and helpful to me when I finally extracted myself from the cult I had been a member of for six years. She took the time to speak to me numerous times on the telephone and through various e-mails. Her book is a tremendous resource for anyone interested in this subject. It is literally one of the best published and I've researched religious cults for over a decade now. For a comprehensive look at mind altering organizations, this is a book no one should pass up.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best books about cults published today
Review: Dr. Singer has written a very valuable resource for all readers who are interested in cults, who have a loved one in a cult, or who, like myself -- ended up being greatly deceived by a cult. Dr. Singer was supportive and helpful to me when I finally extracted myself from the cult I had been a member of for six years. She took the time to speak to me numerous times on the telephone and through various e-mails. Her book is a tremendous resource for anyone interested in this subject. It is literally one of the best published and I've researched religious cults for over a decade now. For a comprehensive look at mind altering organizations, this is a book no one should pass up.
Rating:
Summary: Cults in our Midst
Review: I have the unfortunate situation of being a father(divorced)with two children who dissapaered in a religious /o cuasi-religious Cult. In my quest for answers and for learning, I met with Janja Lalich and we became friends and pen-pals. I have read hundreds of books on the New Age movement, and I have also compared them with Cults in our Midst. This book very succintly describes with graphic and explosive words what a Cult leader is, and as I am an Attorney and are familiar with Law suits against Cults such as Scientology, New Aghe, Sevnth Day Adventist, Jehovah Witnesses, and others, Margaret Thaler Singer and Janja Lalich(who is a former cult member herself)describe what the characteristics of a Cult leader are with wisdom and tought, and it makes for very good material for people like me who suddenly one day woke up and found ourselves in this impossible situation; together with personal therapy and support groups, I highly reccomend people in similar situations like mine to read it and open their eyes to the danger of these societal menaces who destroy minds and families, excelent work, Paul Hirsch Pels
Rating:
Summary: The Cult Spectrum Revealed
Review: I'm not an expert on cults. I've never (to my knowledge) participated in one. I have made a study, however, of human belief, and what I found in this book was fascinating and illuminating. I must confess that what I got the most out of it was not what Singer was writing, but what I found between the lines. There is clearly a continuum of cultic thought, technique, and behavior, and all groups and institutions fall somewhere along that continuum. Singer deals almost exclusively with those groups that land way out on one extreme, but when she discusses Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGAT) she eludes to this continuum. Where she falls short, I believe, is in recognizing (or discussing) that probably all religious belief falls rather far along this continuum, and no doubt had its roots way to the extreme. I would expect that it could be argued that Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Joseph Smith, Zoroaster etc. etc. etc. and the movements they began could all be evaluated against the criteria of a cult and found to exhibit most if not all the designating factors. They move away from the end of the spectrum where the hard-core cults are found when they mainstream and become more popular...it's simply too difficult to control that many people and that many variables. Religions have made a choice...sacrifice control for size, power and influence. Cults have not yet made that choice, prefering instead to retain the control and live with the limited power and influence that an individual cultic figure can muster. The information found in this book is very valuable in helping each of us assess our own vulnerabilities to charismatic and interesting people and causes. That should not frighten us away from striving for those experiences, only warning us to approach with caution, with our eyes wide open and our radar screens well lit!
Rating:
Summary: The Cult Spectrum Revealed
Review: I'm not an expert on cults. I've never (to my knowledge) participated in one. I have made a study, however, of human belief, and what I found in this book was fascinating and illuminating. I must confess that what I got the most out of it was not what Singer was writing, but what I found between the lines. There is clearly a continuum of cultic thought, technique, and behavior, and all groups and institutions fall somewhere along that continuum. Singer deals almost exclusively with those groups that land way out on one extreme, but when she discusses Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGAT) she eludes to this continuum. Where she falls short, I believe, is in recognizing (or discussing) that probably all religious belief falls rather far along this continuum, and no doubt had its roots way to the extreme. I would expect that it could be argued that Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Joseph Smith, Zoroaster etc. etc. etc. and the movements they began could all be evaluated against the criteria of a cult and found to exhibit most if not all the designating factors. They move away from the end of the spectrum where the hard-core cults are found when they mainstream and become more popular...it's simply too difficult to control that many people and that many variables. Religions have made a choice...sacrifice control for size, power and influence. Cults have not yet made that choice, prefering instead to retain the control and live with the limited power and influence that an individual cultic figure can muster. The information found in this book is very valuable in helping each of us assess our own vulnerabilities to charismatic and interesting people and causes. That should not frighten us away from striving for those experiences, only warning us to approach with caution, with our eyes wide open and our radar screens well lit!
Rating:
Summary: Paperback edition does not cover Landmark Forum
Review: Like others, I found the book useful, particularly for case studies and as a general introduction. I was unimpressed by the rather vague characterization of the differences between mainstream schools of thought (military, religious etc.) and cults as the Authors identify them - I'm left with the idea that she's particularly concerned with not attacking deeply rooted beliefs and patriotic feelings, but the analysis of the difference - if there really IS a difference - is largely unconvincing. It is important to notice that the treatment of Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT) programs is incomplete in the paperback edition, due to a pending cause with Landmark Education. All references to the widespread (and wealthy enough to stop just about anyone) Landmark Forum have been removed. So if you want her description and analysis of it, you'll need to get the hardback edition.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, but it doesn't deal enough with LGAT's...
Review: Some would-be earlier critics here have tried to make it seem like Dr. Singer is somehow "intolerant" of alternative religions; a pejorative often used by the members of many cults and controversial organizations, noncoincidentally many of which are discussed in this very book. Trust me, nowadays any professor who is truly intolerant doesn't have the vast positive regard of her peers that Dr. Singer has. Her research methodologies and subsequent writings conformed to the best tradition of the empirical and scientific psychology. Dr. Singer made it amply clear that she acknowledged the differences between new age groups versus cults and similar, and she made it amply clear that her book is absolutely no criticism of the new age movement or indeed of religion in general. However this is a book solely about cults and cult-like organizations and that is her sole focus. A book cannot be all things to all people, and to criticize it for not being such isn't a fair criticism. The cults and cult-like organizations that this books focuses on are designed to resemble the typical self help and/or business training seminars you may already be familiar with. However many allege who have attended such groups allege to have experienced something altogether different from what they thought that they would. If acquainting yourself with these differences has recently become of particular importance to you then this book is THE ONE to get on this topic. Unfortunately the large group awareness training (LGAT) section was suppressed by Landmark Education, formerly Werner Erhard's "EST" of the 70's. This has unforuntunately become an all-too-common phenomena. Singer asserts in this book that many scholarly researchers have been and still are often threatened with lawsuits when they seek to do research that may paint such controversial groups in a less than positive light. Along with other controversial groups, various LGAT's are making a comeback in the corporate and/or self help/new age seminar circuit. If you cannot find the 1995 edition of Cults in Our Midst that still has the LGAT information, then you may find it at the Rick Ross website under the search title, "Intruding into the Workplace." It's your mind and your money. Therefore you have the right to know. Don't ever let anyone manipulate, shame or guilt trip you into doing anything that you're not comfortable with.
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