Cult Checklist

There are countless resources on the internet that list the attributes of cults. I'm going to use the first one that Google served up, that being Cult Recovery 101, and render my opinions about how closely the checklist aligns with The Environment. My comments are interspersed. 

1. Group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.

Beyond any doubt

2. Group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.

No

3. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

Beyond any doubt

4. Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).

To an extent. Things that happened in group could be described as denunciation sessions. And there were occasional all-night group sessions intended to break down inhibitions. 

5. The group is preoccupied with making money.

Beyond any doubt

 6. The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel.

Beyond any doubt

7. The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members.

Beyond any doubt

8. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society

To an extent. Conflict was avoided by being secretive. For instance, the children were home-schooled specifically to avoid one of the them revealing too much to a teacher or counselor. 

9. The group’s leader is not accountable to any authorities.

Yes. However this item reeks of apologetics for organized religion e.g. LDS. (See full text at Cult Recovery 101 for context.)

10. The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group.

Beyond any doubt. In particular, the ethics of a therapist having sex with patients, and assuming control over businesses started by patients, were never questioned.

I'm not particularly impressed by this list. A common characteristic that's missing is members being discouraged from having contact with family members. This was very much the case in the E.