Scholars generally identify four characteristics distinguishing cults from ordinary groups: a charismatic leader who claims special access to truth or power; a belief system promising transformation or salvation; a system of control that erodes individuals' autonomy through exhaustion, surveillance or humiliation; and a system of social pressure that punishes doubt and those who leave, through ostracism, intimidation or loss of family and community ties.
The International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA), a global network of researchers studying coercive groups, tracks more than 4,000 such groups worldwide, up from roughly 2,000 in the 1980s. A 1978 ICSA survey found about 400 former members clustered in just 40 organisations; its latest survey found more than 900 former members spread across 540 groups.
MIVILUDES, the French government's watchdog on "sectarian aberrations", logged more than 4,500 reports of suspected cult activity in 2024, more than double the level recorded in 2015. A majority involved communities with online activities. Nearly one in five French cases in 2024 involved a minor.
The internet has replaced door-to-door evangelists and street-corner preachers with online influencers, life coaches and self-styled healers. Many modern movements do not claim to be religious, instead speaking the language of wellness, purpose and self-mastery. Alternative therapies boomed during the pandemic, when fear and isolation made people more receptive to promises of healing and control. Social-media algorithms reinforce dependence on the group by feeding users content that presents the group's views as the only reality.
The internet has also splintered the cult landscape: where investigators once dealt with a small number of well-defined groups, they now encounter dozens of tiny ones.
Europol, the EU's police agency, has warned of a rise in online cults coercing teenagers into violence.
Countries have taken sharply different approaches. France has gone furthest, criminalising the "fraudulent abuse of weakness" in a 2001 law and expanding this in 2024 by outlawing "psychological subjugation", defined as any deliberate effort to deprive a person of free will. Belgium has adopted a similar framework. Spain explicitly recognises "coercive sects" in its penal code. At the opposite end are countries with robust protections for freedom of belief, such as America.
A study of Belgium's "sect" cases found that 93% of investigations were closed with no legal action due to the absence of any crime. Statutes targeting mental manipulation risk criminalising eccentric communities or unconventional faiths. An alternative approach is to prosecute cult-like organisations for demonstrable offences such as forced labour, rape, fraud, extortion or blackmail.
NXIVM, a company that claimed to provide classes in leadership and personal development in upstate New York, coerced women into "master-slave" relationships. Its founder, Keith Raniere, was sentenced to 120 years in prison for sexually abusing a child, forced labour and racketeering.
File cabinet: A four drawer, manually activated trash compactor.