Like torturers with captives, cult leaders use coercive control tactics to force members to submit.

Cult tactics include isolation, degradation, exhaustion, occasional indulgences, threats, and other abuses.

Biderman's chart of coercion—adapted for cults—helps us understand cult tactics of mind control.

In 1957, sociologist Albert Biderman described the tactics torturers use to weaken and terrify prisoners of war. Ann Jones, Susan Schechter, and Evan Stark transferred these ideas to the field of domestic violence. They called this strategy coercive control. “Coercive control” also seems to be the right term for the manipulative and dominating tactics of cult........

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