Came across an interesting blog today and it included this check list

Blog address: http://awildcelticrose.blogspot.com/2007/09/cults.html

The cult checklist did not print correctly here but you can find it @
http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html

don't relate to the neopagan beliefs (sounds too much like rse doctrine!) but here is the evaluation frame that jtrl references. criteria well stated.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-u-c-h!

Rate from 1 -10; Higher the score, the more dangerous the group…

1. Internal Control: Amount of internal political and social power exercised by leader(s) over members; lack of clearly defined organizational rights for members.

2. External Control: Amount of external political and social influence desired or obtained; emphasis on directing members’ external political and social behavior.

3.Wisdom/Knowledge Claimed by leader(s); amount of infallibility declared or implied about decisions or doctrinal/scriptural interpretations; number and degree of unverified and/or unverifiable credentials claimed.

4.Wisdom/Knowledge Credited to leader(s) by members; amount of trust in decisions or doctrinal/scriptural interpretations made by leader(s); amount of hostility by members towards internal or external critics and/or towards verification efforts.

5. Dogma: Rigidity of reality concepts taught; amount of doctrinal inflexibility or “fundamentalism;” hostility towards relativism and situationalism.

6. Recruiting: Emphasis put on attracting new members; amount of proselytizing; requirement for all members to bring in new ones.

7. Front Groups: Number of subsidiary groups using different names from that of main group, especially when connections are hidden.

8. Wealth: Amount of money and/or property desired or obtained by group; emphasis on members’ donations; economic lifestyle of leader(s) compared to ordinary members.

9. Sexual Manipulation of members by leader(s) of non-tantric groups; amount of control exercised over sexuality of members in terms of sexual orientation, behavior, and/or choice of partners.

10. Sexual Favoritism: Advancement or preferential treatment dependent upon sexual activity with the leader(s) of non-tantric groups.

11.Censorship: Amount of control over members’ access to outside opinions on group, its doctrines or leader(s).

12.Isolation: Amount of effort to keep members from communicating with non-members, including family, friends and lovers.

13. Dropout Control: Intensity of efforts directed at preventing or returning dropouts.

14. Violence: Amount of approval when used by or for the group, its doctrines or leader(s).

15. Paranoia: Amount of fear concerning real or imagined enemies; exaggeration of perceived power of opponents; prevalence of conspiracy theories.

16. Grimness: Amount of disapproval concerning jokes about the group, its doctrines or its leader(s).

17. Surrender of Will: Amount of emphasis on members not having to be responsible for personal decisions; degree of individual disempowerment created by the group, its doctrines or its leader(s).

18. Hypocrisy: amount of approval for actions which the group officially considers immoral or unethical, when done by or for the group, its doctrines or leader(s); willingness to violate the group’s declared principles for political, psychological, social, economic, military, or other gain.