This is a study article which is a review of Prof Arthur J. Deikman‘s work on cult behaviours in everyday life.  Deikman was clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Franscisco and published ‘The Wrong Way Home; Uncovering the Patterns of Cult Behavior in American Society’ in 1990.  The book lays out his analyses of certain characteristics found in cults emphasising the point that, far from being unusual rarities of behaviour found in the easily led or weak minded, these ways of thinking and acting are widespread and nestled in the comfort of our own tendencies.
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