In my younger years, I was part of two groups (8 years and 30 years) which people like you would label as dangerous or potentially dangerous cults. I would offer a few questions/comments coming from the personal experience that cult critics have not had.

-- I came to know many people (I was one) whose life was about a sincere searching for God. This was a welcome contrast from all those mainstream churchgoers who attend primarily for a social gathering or to be able to claim a phony self-righteousness.

-- Neither group attempted to hold on to its members. In fact, it was the international leader of the first group who told me I had served the organization well and I was free to pursue something else.

-- I witnessed some abuse by leaders, but it was never as egregious as the cruelty and dehumanization I watched in the capitalist world as an employee of various companies.

-- In my experience, what makes a group a cult was a common mind (way of thinking), total control, and an us v them attitude to the rest of the world. How many groups fall outside this definition? The Army? Sports teams? Large companies? All churches? Teachers? MAGA? Being an American? The brotherhood of people critiquing/attacking cults? Moreover, some "cult" qualities are necessary for any organization to function.

-- I suggest that all those who attack cults take a little time looking at what in them might explain their obsession.

-- If the capitalist elite continues to take over, along with the horrendous gap between the very rich and all others, resulting in the increasing inability of most of us to support ourselves, all of us will eventually have to go to collective living.

-- The real sin/sickness is the "us v them" mentality that has come to characterize almost every institution in this country. Even if they failed (for lack of a manual), many of the groups now characterized as dangerous cults were trying to get past this sickness.