Robert Jay Lifton, the leading modern scholar of coercive groups, developed eight criteria of “thought reform,” eight indicators that a group psychologically controls its members: information and communication are controlled; perfection and purity are demanded; sins and faults are openly discussed and excoriated; doctrine and leadership are ultimate truth and beyond criticism; personal experiences are subordinate to ideology; language and thought-terminating clichés are used to force conformity; everyone in the outside world is evil; and experiences are orchestrated to appear spontaneously
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