Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs
Copyright © 2003 University of Maryland.
All rights reserved.
Revised: June 30, 2003
WHAT IS A DANGEROUS GROUP?
- Characteristics of dangerous groups
A dangerous group is a group with a hidden agenda of power which is achieved by deceptive recruitment and control over the minds and lives of its members.
One of the great difficulties in dealing with abusive, intrusive and inappropriate groups on campus is that there is no consistent and agreed-upon definition for what constitutes a “destructive group.” The behaviors that, particularly in combination, make an organization or group destructive group-like, however, would probably include:
- Deception (including pretensions of friendship in the recruitment of new members)
- Efforts to remove members from individuals and activities outside the group
- The use of ridicule or embarrassment to motivate or control members
- A demand for slavish, unquestioning obedience to the group and its leadership
- Extraordinary pressure to recruit new
members, sometimes even in
pyramid fashion - Extraordinary demands for members’
contributions -- in money and
time -- in support of the group - The channeling of funds raised to undisclosed parent organizations
During their lives, students may be urged to join all kinds of organizations.
The great majority of these organizations are well-meaning and constructive,
whether they are political, social, service, religious or philosophical in
nature; however, there are groups that have appeared in our society and on
campuses whose purposes and techniques are opposed to giving their members free,
informed and intelligent choices about what to do with their lives.
A dangerous group is a group with a hidden agenda of power which
is achieved by deceptive recruitment and control over the minds and lives of its
members.
Their
members may approach us in an unexpectedly friendly way, and may seem to take a
special personal interest in us. They may invite us to meetings where their
focus on us and our philosophical beliefs become more intense. This intense
personal interest may be gradually combined with increasing demands on our time
and attention, to such an extent that we may be inclined to drop out of school,
abandon friends and family, and virtually change our personality and identity.
This deceitfulness by such a group and its control over our minds and lives is
the motivation for the definition of a dangerous group.
Notice that the definition says nothing about the beliefs of a group. A group is
regarded as “dangerous” if it hides its identity or beliefs from new recruits,
and if it manipulates its members’ minds and lives in a deceitful manner. The
techniques of mind-control used by such groups are extremely sophisticated and
have become very well developed since the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The most
famous such group was the People’s Temple, whose leader Jim Jones ultimately
commanded the mass murder and suicide of over 900 members in 1978. Yet it is
estimated that thousands of dangerous groups with several million members
exist today. Moreover, it is estimated that at least one out of every ten
families in the United States has been affected by a dangerous group.
Some people claim that occasionally a dangerous group has been helpful to
certain individuals--especially those under great stress, for whom a “new
family” or a strict regime involving unthinking allegiance to the leaders could
bring desirable changes in their lives. But whether or not a group is harmful to
an individual, that individual has the right to make his or her own informed and
free choices.
