Is the "Mega Foundation" a Cult?

Kevin Langdon

Over the past two years, since the publication of the Esquire article misstating his IQ as 195 (the real ceiling of the Mega Test, the test on which he bases that claim, is ~178 [SD=16]) and touting him as "possibly the smartest man in America," Chris Langan has made an attempt to corner the market on super-high IQ communities. Langan's methods are brutal. He seems to have little respect for the rights of others and, in particular, he represents himself as speaking for the Mega Society, of which he is only an ordinary member, in an official capacity. Some of us in the Mega Society are determined not to let him get away with this theft of the public image of our society and the misappropriation of its auspices for Mr. Langan's personal self-aggrandizing activities.

I have been asked by Mr. Langan to document my statement on my Web site that the Ultranet is "partly a cult." The following is offered pursuant to that request and is in no way intended as a provocation.

The excerpt below is from a page titled "What are the Characteristics of a Religious Cult?" http://www.sspx-cult.com/CultCharacteristics.htm. This site is maintained by a group which is apparently very interested in proving that another group is a cult. I am not interested in that particular controversy, but they provide several lists of cult characteristics from a number of different sources which provide a convenient yardstick for assessing the extent to which Chris Langan's organization which makes use of such names as "Mega Foundation," "Ultranet," "Global UltraHIQ Network," "Mega Society East" (i.e., phony), etc., can fairly be described as a cult.

Introduction

Many people have studied cults. Because all cults have different beliefs, cult experts have identified common characteristics of cults, which they use to identify new cults. Thus, an organization can be identified as a cult no matter what their beliefs are. We have used the following lists of cult characteristics to help us analyze whether or not the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) is a religious cult. We make the following lists available to others as a public service. If you have any reason to believe that you or anyone close to you is involved with a group that you suspect is a cult (religious or not) then you can use the following lists to help you decide whether the group is a cult. (Please note that a group doesn't need to have all the characteristics in any one list to really be a destructive cult. If a group has more than half of the cult characteristics in any of the lists below, then you should
be concerned. If so, we advise you to contact any one of the sources of information listed below).

Cult Information Sources

American Family Foundation (14 Characteristics)

The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.

We've seen very clearly that the group is focused around Chris Langan (just look at its Web pages). Some followers are extremely zealous, some are less so. [1 characteristic out of 1 so far]

The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.

The Ultranetters are very rah-rah and very concerned with publicity. [2/2]

The group is preoccupied with making money.

Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

As various posters to the Prometheus Society's fire list have reported. [3/4]

Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).

The denunciation of enemies is high on Chris' priority list, but as none of these other things seems to be applicable, I won't claim this point.

The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth).

The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).

[4/7]

The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.

Only the leaders.

The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations).

[5/9]

The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).

Or extreme, crude, and persistent vilification of enemies. [6/10]

The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.

Chris' specialty is the cultivation of intellectual inferiority feelings.

Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.

Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group.

Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.

[5/14 total for this list]

University of California at Berkeley (19 Characteristics)

Recruitment

1. Deception - Group identity and/or true motives are not revealed. The group leaders tell members to withhold truth from outsiders.

Many Ultranetters don't realize what Chris is up to. [1/1]

2. Emotional Leverage/Love Bombing - Instant friendship, extreme helpfulness, generosity and acceptance...Group recruiters "lovingly" will not take "no" for an answer - invitations impossible to refuse without feeling guilty and/or ungrateful. "Love", "generosity", "encouragement" are used to lower defenses and create an ever increasing sense of obligation, debt and guilt.

There's a little bit of "love bombing," but we won't count this one.

3. Exploit Personal Crisis - They use an existing crisis as a means of getting you to participate. They exploit vulnerability arising from:

• Broken relationships
• Death in the family
• Loss of job
• Move to new location
• Loneliness/depression
• Guilt/shame
• Stress/fear

4. Crisis Creation - They employ tactics designed to create or deepen
confusion, fear, guilt or doubt. i.e. "you aren't serving God the way He
intended." Questions areas of faith never before examined or explored
and attack other faiths specifically.

5. All The Answers - Provide simple answers to the confusion they,
themselves, create. Support these answers with material produced or
"approved" by the group.

See Chris' writings on the Mega and Prometheus e-mail lists and in his own publications, and my message of March 6, 2000,  "The Wit and Wisdom of Chris Langan".

Programming

1. Intense Study - Focus is on group doctrine and writings. Bible, if used at all, is referred to one verse at time to "prove" group teachings.

2. Opposer Warnings - Recruiters are told that "Satan" will cause relatives and friend to say bad things about the group to try to "steal them away from God." Recruits soon believe group members, alone, are truthful/trustworthy.

Chris has issued plenty of "opposer warnings," notably about Steve Coy, Chris Cole, and me. [3/7]

3. Guilt and Fear - Group dwells on members' "sinful nature" (many use public confession). Guilt and fear arising from "failing God" are magnified to manipulate new member.

4. Schedule Control & Fatigue - Study and service become mandatory. New member becomes too busy to question. Family, friends, jobs and hobbies are squeezed out, further isolating the new member.

5. Attack Independent Thought - Critical thinking is discouraged as prideful and sinful, blind acceptance encouraged.

Critical, independent remarks about Chris Langan, his organization, or the CTMU are very strongly discouraged. But we'll let this one pass, as critical remarks about other subjects do not usually receive the same treatment.

6. Divine Commission - Leader(s) claim new revelation from God, within past 200 years, in which all but their group are rejected by God. They, alone, speak for God.

[4/11]

7. Absolutism - They insist on total, unquestioning obedience and submission to the group, both actions AND thoughts. Group "love" and acceptance becomes dependent upon obedience and submission. Unconditional love...isn't.

For example, Chris and Gina no longer love Steve Coy. [5/12]

8. Totalism - "Us against them" thinking. Strengthens group identity. Everyone outside of group lumped under one label.

Retention

1. Motive Questioning- When sound evidence against the group is presented, members are taught to question the motivation of the presenter. The verifiable (sound documentation) is ignored because of doubts over the unverifiable (presenter's motives). See Opposer Warnings (#2 above).

[6/14]

2. Information Control - Group controls what convert may read or hear. They discourage (forbid) contact with ex-members or anything critical of the group. May say it is the same as pornography making it not only sinful and dangerous but shameful as well. Ex-members become feared and avoidance of them becomes a "survival issue."

Critics are systematically excluded. External critics are attacked. [7/15]

3. Isolation, Separation & Alienation - Group becomes substitute family. Members encouraged to drop worldly (non-members)
> friends. May be told to change jobs, quit school, give up sports, hobbies, etc.

4. Coercion - Disobedience, including even minor disagreement with group doctrine, may result in expulsion and shunning.

Many have been warned; a few have been expelled. [8/17]

5. Phobias - The idea is planted that anyone who leaves goes into a life of depravity and sin, loses their sanity, dies, or will have children die, etc. Constant rumors of bad things happening to people who leave. No one ever leaves for "legitimate reasons."

6. Striving for the Unreachable - Group membership and service are essential for salvation..."Work your way into God's favor." No matter what you do, it is never enough.

[8/19 total for this list]

Cult Information Centre (31 Characteristics)

Every cult can be defined as a group having all of the following five characteristics:

1. It uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members.

2. It forms an elitist totalitarian society.

[1/2]

3. Its founder leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable and has charisma.

[2/3]

4. It believes 'the end justifies the means' in order to solicit funds recruit people.

Marginal.

5. Its wealth does not benefit its members or society.

Inapplicable.

Mind Control techniques include:

1. Hypnosis
Inducing a state of high suggestibility by hypnosis, often thinly disguised as relaxation or meditation.

2. Peer Group Pressure
Suppressing doubt and resistance to new ideas by exploiting the need to belong.

[3/7]

3. Love Bombing
Creating a sense of family and belonging through hugging, kissing, touching and flattery.

Lots of phony flattery. [4/8]

4. Rejection of Old Values
Accelerating acceptance of new life style by constantly denouncing former values and beliefs.

5. Confusing Doctrine
Encouraging blind acceptance and rejection of logic through complex lectures on an incomprehensible doctrine.

From "Time Out of Mind" from Chris' CTMU pages http://www.megafoundation.org/TimeOutOfMind.html:

The symmetric influence of cognitive and physical grammars implies a directional symmetry of time. Although time is usually seen as a one-way street, it need not be; the mere fact that a street is marked "one way" does not stop it from being easily traveled in the unauthorized direction. Indeed, two-way time shows up in both quantum physics and relativity theory, the primary mainstays of modern physics. Thus, it is not physically warranted to say that cognition cannot influence the laws of physics because the laws of physics "precede cognition in time". If we look at the situation from the other direction, we can as easily say that cognition "precedes" the laws of physics in reverse time…and point to the strange bidirectional laws of particle physics to justify our position. These laws are of such a nature that they can as well be called laws of perception as laws of physics. Before we get to the final word on time, there is one more aspect of physical grammar that must be considered. Physical reasoning
sometimes requires a distinction between two kinds of time: ordinary time and cosmic time. With respect to observations made at normal velocities, ordinary time behaves in a way described by Newtonian analytic geometry; at higher velocities, and in the presence of strong gravitational fields, it behaves according to Einstein’s Special and General Theories of Relativity. But not long after Einstein formulated his General Theory, it was discovered that the universe, AKA spacetime, was expanding. Because cosmic expansion seems to imply that the universe began as a dimensionless point, the universe must have been created, and the creation event must have occurred on a higher level of time: cosmic time. Whereas ordinary time  accommodates changes occurring within the spacetime manifold, this is obviously not so for the kind of time in which the manifold itself changes. Now for the fly in the cosmological ointment. As we have seen, it is the nature of the cognitive self to formulate models incorporating ever-higher levels of change (or time). Obviously, the highest level of change is that characterizing the creation of reality. Prior to the moment of creation, the universe was not there; afterwards, the universe was there. This represents a sizable change indeed! Unfortunately, it also constitutes a sizable paradox. If the creation of reality was a real event, and if this event occurred in cosmic time, then cosmic time itself is real. But then cosmic time is an aspect of reality and can only have been created with reality. This implies that cosmic time, and in fact reality, must have created themselves!

And from "Introduction to the CTMU" http://www.megafoundation.org/CTMU.html:

This characterizes a system that perceives and computes itself from within via a 2-stage form of self-similarity, a self-contained analog of holography called hology. The associated mapping D is called incoversion in the spatiotemporally inward direction and coinversion in the reverse (outward, D-1) direction. Incoversion carries global structure inward as state-transformation syntax, while coinversion projects syntactic structure outward in such a way as to determine future states in conformance to it. Incoversion is associated with an operation called requantization, while coinversion is associated with a complementary operation called inner expansion. The alternation of these operations, often referred to as wave-particle duality, comprises the process known as conspansion. To put it simply, the Principle of Conspansive Duality says that what appears as cosmic expansion from an interior (local) viewpoint appears as material and temporal contraction from a global viewpoint. Because metric concepts like "size" and "duration" are undefined with respect to the universe as a whole, the spacetime metric is defined strictly on internal contravariance, and the usual cosmological regress to a tiny, pointlike singularity is "rounded" into a closed spacetime algebra (as some readers are already aware, this is how the CTMU deals with cosmogony and accelerating cosmic expansion).

[5/10]

Back to the Cult Information Centre's list:

6. Metacommunication
Implanting subliminal messages by stressing certain key words or phrases in long, confusing lectures.

7. Removal of Privacy
Achieving loss of ability to evaluate logically by preventing private contemplation.

8. Time Sense Deprivation
Destroying ability to evaluate information, personal reactions, and body functions in relation to passage of time by removing all clocks and watches.

Does removing old conceptions of space-time count? ;-)

9. Disinhibition
Encouraging child-like obedience by orchestrating child-like behaviour.

Many messages that I've seen from the Ultranet show something of this pattern, but we can let this one go.

10. Uncompromising Rules
Inducing regression and disorientation by soliciting agreement to seemingly simple rules which regulate mealtimes, bathroom breaks and use of medications.

11. Verbal Abuse
Desensitizing through bombardment with foul and abusive language.

[6/16]

12. Sleep Deprivation and Fatigue
Creating disorientation and vulnerability by prolonging mental and physical activity and withholding adequate rest and sleep.

13. Dress Codes
Removing individuality by demanding conformity to the group dress code.

14. Chanting and Singing
Eliminating non-cult ideas through group repetition of mind-narrowing chants or phrases.

Some people have used terms from the CTMU that they clearly didn't understand, but we won't count this one.

15. Confession
Encouraging the destruction of individual ego through confession of personal weaknesses and innermost feelings of doubt.

16. Financial Commitment
Achieving increased dependence on the group by 'burning bridges' to the past, through the donation of assets.

17. Finger Pointing
Creating a false sense of righteousness by pointing to the shortcomings of the outside world and other cults.

[7/22]

18. Flaunting Hierarch
Promoting acceptance of cult authority by promising advancement, power and salvation.

Chris is always talking about the opportunities available those who stick with him instead of hanging around with that awful Coy person or with the Anti-Chris. [8/23]

19. Isolation
Inducing loss of reality by physical separation from family, friends, society and rational references.

20. Controlled Approval
Maintaining vulnerability and confusion by alternately rewarding and punishing similar actions.

21. Change of Diet
Creating disorientation and increased susceptibility to emotional arousal by depriving the nervous system of necessary nutrients through the use of special diets and/or fasting.

22. Games
Inducing dependence on the group by introducing games with obscure rules.

Chris always makes up his own set of rules for the games that are already in progress and then insists that others play by them. [9/27]

23. No Questions
Accomplishing automatic acceptance of beliefs by discouraging questions.

Questions are responded to by ad hominem attacks. [10/28]

24. Guilt
Reinforcing the need for 'salvation' by exaggerating the sins of the former lifestyles.

25. Fear
Maintaining loyalty and obedience to the group by threatening soul, life or limb for the slightest 'negative' thought, word or deed.

26. Replacement of Relationships
Destroying pre-cult families by arranging cult marriages and 'families'.

[10/31 total for this list]

Carol Giambalvo (13 Characteristics)

1. Authoritarian in their power structure.

[1/1]

2. Totalitarian in their control of the behavior of their members.

People have been kicked out for speaking up. [2/2]

3. Pyramidal structure.

[3/3]

4. Uses thought reform techniques.

5. Isolation of members (physical and/or psychological isolation) from society.

6. Uses deception in recruiting and/or fund raising.

"IQ 195!" "Smartest man in the world"! Give me a break. [4/6]

7. Promotes dependence of the members on the group.

8. Totalitarian in their world view.

[5/8]

9. Uses mind altering techniques (chanting, meditation, hypnosis and various forms of repetitive actions) to stop normal critical thinking.

10. Appear exclusive and innovative.

[6/10]

11. Charismatic or messianic leader who is self-appointed and has a special mission in life.

[7/11]

12. Controls the flow of information.

By exclusion of troublemakers and intimidation of "enemies." [8/12]

13. Instills a fear of leaving the group.

[8/13 total for this list]

Rick Ross (20 Characteristics)

Ten warning signs of a potentially unsafe group/leader.

Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.

[1/1]

No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.

[2/2]

No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement.

[3/3]

Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.

For example, the conspiracy of the acadummies against Chris Langan. [4/4]

There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.

Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.

"I dared to speak out. I got a stern warning from Gina. I persisted. I was kicked out." [5/6]

There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader.

Followers feel they can never be "good enough".

The group/leader is always right.

[6/9]

The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

Chris will grudgingly admit that some others deserve a little bit of credit for their discoveries or creative productions.

Ten warning signs regarding people involved in/with a potentially unsafe group/leader.

Extreme obsessiveness regarding the group/leader resulting in the exclusion of almost every practical consideration.

Just some of them.

Individual identity, the group, the leader and/or God as distinct and separate categories of existence become increasingly blurred. Instead, in the follower's mind these identities become substantially and increasingly fused--as that person's involvement with the group/leader continues and deepens. Whenever the group/leader is criticized or questioned it is characterized as "persecution".

The final point is glaringly obvious. [7/12]

Uncharacteristically stilted and seemingly programmed conversation and mannerisms, cloning of the group/leader in personal behavior.

We'll let this one pass.

Dependency upon the group/leader for problem solving, solutions, and definitions without meaningful reflective thought. A seeming inability to think independently or analyze situations without group/leader involvement.

Here's another questionable one. And again we won't count it.

Hyperactivity centered on the group/leader agenda, which seems to supercede any personal goals or individual interests. A dramatic loss of spontaneity and sense of humor.

Another one of those.

Increasing isolation from family and old friends unless they demonstrate an interest in the group/leader.

Anything the group/leader does can be justified no matter how harsh or harmful.

[8/19]

Former followers are at best considered negative or worse evil and under bad influences. They can not be trusted and personal contact is avoided.

Watch out for Steve Coy. [9/20]

[9/20 total for this list]

Steven Hassan (27 Characteristics)

I. Behavior Control

1. Regulation of individual's physical reality
   a. Where, how and with whom the member lives and associates with
   b. What clothes, colors, hairstyles the person wears
   c. What food the person eats, drinks, adopts, and rejects
   d. How much sleep the person is able to have
   e. Financial dependence
   f. Little or no time spent on leisure, entertainment, vacations

2. Major time commitment required for indoctrination sessions and group rituals

3. Need to ask permission for major decisions

4. Need to report thoughts, feelings and activities to superiors

5. Rewards and punishments (behavior modification techniques--positive and negative).

6. Individualism discouraged; group think prevails

7. Rigid rules and regulations

There is a rigid prohibition of serious criticism of Chris and Gina, the CTMU, and the MF/Ultranet. [1/7]

8. Need for obedience and dependency

II. Information Control

1. Use of deception
   a. Deliberately holding back information
   b. Distorting information to make it acceptable
   c. Outright lying

Chris is engaged in a massive disinformation campaign, as I have documented in many messages to the fire list. [2/9]

2. Access to non-cult sources of information minimized or discouraged
   a. Books, articles, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio
   b. Critical information
   c. Former members
   d. Keep members so busy they don't have time to think

It's discouraged, but we won't count this one.

3. Compartmentalization of information; Outsider vs. Insider doctrines
   a. Information is not freely accessible
   b. Information varies at different levels and missions within pyramid
   c. Leadership decides who "needs to know" what

Steve Coy has pointed out how pervasive this is. [3/11]

4. Spying on other members is encouraged
   a. Pairing up with "buddy" system to monitor and control
   b. Reporting deviant thoughts, feelings, and actions to leadership

5. Extensive use of cult generated information and propaganda
   a. Newsletters, magazines, journals, audio tapes, videotapes, etc.
   b. Misquotations, statements taken out of context from non-cult sources

Chris' Web pages and his contributions to the Prometheus and Mega lists provide abundant evidence of this. [4/13]

6. Unethical use of confession
   a. Information about "sins" used to abolish identity boundaries
   b. Past "sins" used to manipulate and control; no forgiveness or absolution

III. Thought Control

1. Need to internalize the group's doctrine as "Truth"
   a. Map = Reality
   b. Black and White thinking
   c. Good vs. evil
   d. Us vs. them (inside vs. outside)

"Map = Reality" is one of the the three "metalogical principles" that are the cornerstones of the CTMU. [5/15]

2. Adopt "loaded" language (characterized by "thought-terminating clichés"). Words are the tools we use to think with. These "special" words constrict rather than expand understanding. They function to reduce complexities of experience into trite, platitudinous "buzz words".

[6/16]

3. Only "good" and "proper" thoughts are encouraged.

4. Thought-stopping techniques (to shut down "reality testing" by stopping "negative" thoughts and allowing only "good" thoughts); rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism.
   a. Denial, rationalization, justification, wishful thinking
   b. Chanting
   c. Meditating
   d. Praying
   e. Speaking in "tongues"
   f. Singing or humming

Rational analysis and criticism is strongly discouraged. [7/18]

5. No critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy seen as legitimate.

[8/19]

6. No alternative belief systems viewed as legitimate, good, or useful.

Chris has said that it is impossible for any competing belief system to be correct. [9/20]

IV. Emotional Control

1. Manipulate and narrow the range of a person's feelings.

2. Make the person feel like if there are ever any problems it is always their fault, never the leader's or the group's.

Chris has never admitted to being wrong about anything significant. [10/22]

3. Excessive use of guilt
   a. Identity guilt
      1. Who you are (not living up to your potential)
      2. Your family
      3. Your past
      4. Your affiliations
      5. Your thoughts, feelings, actions
   b. Social guilt
   c. Historical guilt

4. Excessive use of fear
   a. Fear of thinking independently
   b. Fear of the "outside" world
   c. Fear of enemies
   d. Fear of losing one's "salvation"
   e. Fear of leaving the group or being shunned by group
   f. Fear of disapproval

Fear of enemies is certainly used, but we'll let this one go.

5. Extremes of emotional highs and lows.

6. Ritual and often public confession of "sins".

7. Phobia indoctrination : programming of irrational fears of ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader's authority. The person under mind control cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group.
   a. No happiness or fulfillment "outside" of the group
   b. Terrible consequences will take place if you leave: "hell"; "demon possession"; "incurable diseases"; "accidents"; "suicide"; "insanity"; "10,000 reincarnations"; etc.
   c. Shunning of leave takers. Fear of being rejected by friends, peers, and family.
   d. Never a legitimate reason to leave. From the group's perspective, people who leave are: "weak"; "undisciplined"; "unspiritual"; "worldly"; "brainwashed by family, counselors"; seduced by money, sex, rock and roll.

[10/27 total for this list]

John Hochman (7 Characteristics)

What Cults Want

Cults want wealth and power for the leadership, to be supplied by
members.

1. Wealth may include:

transfer of cash, real estate, and cars, profits, from exploitation of members' labor in cult-owned businesses, and funds raised deceptively from relatives and other non-members.

2. Power may include:

manipulation of all relationships, work, or schooling to solely the needs of the cult, assignment of city and country of residence, regulation of pregnancy and sexual favors, behavioral/ideologic controls via group punishments, or threatened expulsions, and limitation of members' opportunities to sleep, to pursue individual interests, or simply to reflect.

3. Leaders exhort members to proselytize; predictably, more members mean more wealth and power for the leaders.

The MF/Ultranet doesn't go this far.

What Cults Don't Want

1. Cults are uninterested in altruism as a moral imperative. Most have self-serving moralities to benefit the organization and its leadership in particular. Individual fulfillment is irrelevant. Pseudoaltruistic activity helps image building.

This one is questionable, but we won't count it.

2. Cults don't want high overhead. Members in cult enterprises may be underpaid or unpaid, work in unsafe environments, or have no provision for medical care.

3. No cult wants its inner workings exposed, although sophisticated cults may curry media interest or even employ public relations consultants and ad agencies to manage their image.

Chris and Gina screamed like a couple of stuck pigs when Steve Coy revealed some of the inner workings of their organization. [1/6]

4. Cults do not want to be called "cults." Thus, a definition is proposed to clarify the discussion in this article.

It may seem a little unfair to count this one, as other types of organizations also object to being characterized as cults, but that's
not my fault. The reactivity exhibited in relation to this charge shows us something, though.

[2/7 total for this list]


Here's the final breakdown:

American Family Foundation 5 of 14, 36%
University of California at Berkeley 8 of 19, 43%
Cult Information Centre 10 of 31, 32%
Carol Giambalvo (cult expert) 8 of 13, 62%
Rick Ross (cult expert) 8 of 20, 40%
Steven Hassan (cult expert) 10 of 27, 37%
John Hochman, MD (psychiatrist) 2 of 7, 29%

The total is 51 of 131, 39%. The mean of the seven individual percentages above is 40%.

And remember that the Introduction warned that "If a group has more than half of the cult characteristics in any of the lists below, then you should be concerned," that I said that the Ultranet is partly a cult, and that many of the characteristics listed by the various cult experts are inapplicable to an entity operating by means of the Internet.

Ironically, Langan accused me of operating a cult in a message to the MegaList (see "Prometheus and Mega, April 1999 [Part Fourteen]").