Educational tool only. All groups exist on a spectrum of control. Individual experiences vary. Based on publicly available reports, ex-member accounts, court records, and expert analyses — not medical or legal advice.
The Cult-Like Control Index (CLCI) is a transparent 0–40 scoring framework based on Steven Hassan's BITE model. We rate religions, high-demand movements, and wellness groups across four categories — Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotional control — plus modifiers. No blanket labels. Just evidence.
All findings derived from publicly available BITE assessments, court records, journalism, and ex-member testimony. Not medical or legal advice.
Loved-one guide, conversation planner, and country-specific support routes.
Warning signs, leaving plan builder, safety resources, exit planning.
Recovery resources, identity rebuilding, religious-trauma-aware therapy finder.
Family support networks, trauma-informed reading, conversation guidance.
Group database, comparison tool, methodology pages, CSV/JSON downloads.
Corrections route, right-of-reply process, scoring-appeals framework.
Topical entry hubs that collate the relevant tactic profiles, guides, tools, resources, and group references for each situation. Each hub is a curated reading path rather than a single page.
Search by what is happening, not by group name. Pattern finder included.
Practical, emotional, and identity work for life after exit.
What to say, what not to say, how to keep the relationship open.
Signs of coercion affecting minors, reporting routes, safeguarding documentation.
Tithing pressure, loans, MLM dynamics, recovering funds after exit.
Discord, Telegram, livestreams, parasocial leader dynamics.
Therapists, teachers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, social workers.
Universal printable checklist of high-control patterns.
Phase 1 Batch J: per-group recovery resources applied via programmatic palette (closest-fit by category + subCategory + score). Palette: Christian high-control.
Phase 1 Batch J: per-group recovery resources applied via programmatic palette (closest-fit by category + subCategory + score). Palette: NRM high-control.
Phase 1 Batch E: per-group recovery resources curated. 5 verified entries — Footsteps (NYC), Hillel Israel, The Forward, ICSA, Freedom of Mind.
Phase 1 Batch J: per-group recovery resources applied via programmatic palette (closest-fit by category + subCategory + score). Palette: Christian high-control.
Phase 1 Batch J: per-group recovery resources applied via programmatic palette (closest-fit by category + subCategory + score). Palette: Mainstream-comparator lighter.
Active US-headquartered commercial seminar and body-work network founded around 1990 by Gary Douglas and later co-developed with Dain Heer. Markets the 'Access Bars' (32 'bars' of the head touched by a trained facilitator), 'Access Body Processes', and a sequence of intensive seminars (Foundation, Levels) at substantial per-participant cost. Documented in ABC Australia 4 Corners sustained investigative coverage (notably the 2019 'The Cost of Consciousness' investigation), in ex-participant testimony archives, and in Australian regulator attention to consumer-protection concerns. Confidence published as Low — primary source base is journalism + ex-member testimony with limited academic coverage.
Historical closed millennialist Christian community in Bedford, England, founded in 1919 by Mabel Barltrop (known within the community as 'Octavia'), an Anglican vicar's widow who received what she identified as direct revelations continuing the eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century Joanna Southcott prophetic tradition. The Society held that the world would end and that they would reign as the 144,000 of Revelation. The Society was the documented keeper of Joanna Southcott's sealed box across the twentieth century. The community is defunct; final dissolution of the organisational structure was effectively complete by 2012 with the death of the last full member. Profiled here as a historical reference entry from Jane Shaw's principal academic monograph.
Small active communal-living Christian movement founded in 1981 by Dave McKay (an Australian-born ex-Children of God / Family International member) and his wife Cherry. The movement operates as a sequence of small communal households across Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, India, and Kenya, organising around a literal-discipleship interpretation of Christian texts. The movement is internationally known for its members' documented practice of voluntary kidney donations to strangers as an expression of that literal-discipleship framework. Documented in sustained BBC and Sydney Morning Herald long-running coverage and in documentary work.
Active US-headquartered network of military-base-focused high-control evangelical Christian churches founded in 1993 by Lige Huber. HOPCC operates congregations primarily in proximity to US military installations, where service members and their families are the documented primary recruitment target. Documented in sustained Military Times and Stars and Stripes investigative coverage from the 2000s onward, in long-running ex-member testimony archives, and in academic LGAT-comparative work.
Umbrella entry covering a documented pattern of high-control new religious movements that emerged in the post-Soviet space following the 1991 collapse of the USSR — concentrated in Russia, Ukraine, and adjacent former Soviet states, and documented in Russian and international academic work on post-Soviet religious revival, in sustained Russian and Ukrainian press, and in multiple national regulatory and criminal proceedings against named figures. Several specific named movements within this pattern are profiled separately in the catalogue. This umbrella covers the pattern at the genre level; it does NOT generalise to the broader diversity of post-Soviet religious revival.
Y2K-era apocalyptic Christian splinter founded by Monte Kim Miller in Denver, Colorado, in the late 1980s. Miller predicted that Denver would be destroyed on 10 October 1998 and that an apocalyptic event would follow in Jerusalem before the Y2K turn-of-millennium. The group relocated to Jerusalem; in January 1999 Israeli police detained 14 members on grounds of suspected planned apocalyptic-violence activity and deported them. The group is treated by Denver Post coverage, by US press, by academic accounts (David Bromley, Catherine Wessinger), and by FBI public statements during the Y2K period as defunct as an organised entity by the early 2000s.
Active intensive-seminar network founded in 1986 by Harry Palmer (a former Scientology mission holder) and operated through Star's Edge International from Altamonte Springs, Florida. The Avatar Course is delivered as a sequence of multi-day residential intensive seminars (the Avatar Course, the Masters Course, the Wizards Course, the Avatar Professional course) under a Scientology-derived 'tech' adapted into a non-Scientology commercial format. Documented in academic Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT) literature, in sustained mainstream press, and in long-running ex-participant testimony archives.
Active Mormon-fundamentalist polygamous community of approximately 1,500 members located in Centennial Park, Arizona, formed in 1986 when the 'Second Ward' broke from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) over leadership and doctrinal disputes. The community continues to practice polygamy under the doctrinal authority of the Council of Priesthood Holders. Distinct from but related to FLDS, the Apostolic United Brethren (AUB), the Kingston Order, and the LeBaron-clan polygamist groups — each profiled separately in the catalogue. Documented in academic monographs (Janet Bennion 1998 and subsequent) and in sustained Arizona regional press.
Originally an integrationist Disciples of Christ congregation in Indianapolis, the Peoples Temple under Jim Jones evolved into a totalitarian movement that culminated in the 1978 mass murder-suicide at Jonestown, Guyana, killing 918 people.
Salafist-jihadist ideology and recruitment network of the so-called 'Islamic State'. Documented patterns of extreme indoctrination, sexual slavery, mass execution, and total information control. Listed as a terrorist organisation by virtually all governments.
Japanese new religious movement founded by Chizuo Matsumoto (Shoko Asahara) in 1984. Combined Buddhist, Hindu, and Christian apocalyptic elements with paramilitary training. Perpetrated the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack; Asahara and 12 others executed in 2018.
UK-based mainstream cult-recovery education charity. Educates on coercive control across high-control groups and abusive relationships.
Mainstream cult-aware therapist network — ICSA directory of licensed mental-health professionals with specific cult-recovery training.
Mainstream academic cult-recovery research community — ICSA, INFORM (LSE), CESNUR, plus various university-based research programmes.
Every score breaks down into Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotional sub-scores plus signed modifiers — no hidden weights.
We cite court records, BITE assessments, peer-reviewed work, and ex-member testimony — never gossip.
We distinguish high-control sub-branches from broader traditions. Most members are not perpetrators — many are also harmed.
We accept correction requests and right-of-reply submissions from any organisation profiled on CLCI Hub. Editorial review is required before publication; we do not auto-publish. See /corrections and /right-of-reply for the formal processes, and scoring appeals for substantive score-change requests.
Take the 30-question self-assessment — it scores any group against the BITE framework in about 8 minutes. Or browse the comparison tool to see two groups side-by-side.