My mother is a seeker, so I grew up baptized multiple times and in and out of various churches. As an adult, I’ve had to rebuild my relationship with both spirituality and community, and I tend to assume every organized group with a shared mission is a cult until proven otherwise. That’s why I really appreciate this carefully constructed “Is It a Cult?” tool by ClearerThinking. The assessment looks at things like unusualness, conformity, isolation, control of information, ethics, and sacrifice, reflecting the nuanced criteria behind their Cult Assessment tool. ClearerThinking’s programs and assessments are grounded in empirical data and are balanced in perspective, and this particular questionnaire understands that being a cult is not binary—it’s a set of traits, each of which lies on a continuum. — CD