...While most of these groups seem friendly, the Office of the Dean of Students refers to some as "high pressure groups."

According to Stephanie Ray, Assistant Dean of Students, the Office has received several complaints in recent weeks about recruiting on campus, especially around the freshmen dorms and outside the Student Center...

...In order to promote awareness of the dangers of these organizations, the Office of the Dean of Students, who should be contacted to report high pressure group activity, published flyers and posted them in Freshmen Experience dorms last week...

...Fitfully, torn between a commitment to respect pluralism and a desire to protect students, the schools are trying to make students aware of the questionable tactics some groups use to lure and hold young members. Although the issue of cults on campus may have received more attention two decades ago, experts say such groups still operate -- and nowadays, colleges are figuring out how to mount a more effective response...

Awareness is key to identifying whether a social group is actually a cult, a former cult member turned counselor said Tuesday evening.

"A cult is essentially a psychological con job," said Janja Lalich of Alameda, Calif...

..."Nobody looks to join a cult," she said. "You're just drawn in."...

...Lalich added it's a myth that only young people join cults...

...If you do know someone who is involved in a cult, Lalich said the best way to help them is to "give them the understanding that they know they can always come home. Keep the door open."

...FG: I am personally proud that based on my experience and good fortune I was able to beat that ideological point before the California Supreme Court in a case entitled Molko vs. The Moonies...

...FG: This theory of exposing brainwashing that I used in Brandyberry successfully, and that I used successfully in Molko was the same. As luck would have it, the very day the trial started in Brandyberry, the California Supreme Court handed down its decision in Molko, October 17th 1988...

...KH: Did the California Supreme Court accept this theory? In other words, what specifically did Molko accomplish?

FG: Yes. The Court held that there is no First Amendment immunity or protection from being accountable for the consequences of deceptive and coercive conduct. Since, when Molko was inducted into the Moonies, no direct physical force was used, Molko also held that as a matter of law the use or threat of physical force was not necessarily required for the successful imposition of a brainwashing scheme. It held that brainwashing can take place on the basis of trust, with a total absence of direct physical force. This is what cult groups and their apologists and attorneys have not been able to swallow...

...FG: Thank you for the most unusual and in-depth interview I've had. Everything that I have said is based on my own firsthand experience. I've thought about it a lot and greatly appreciate the opportunity to disseminate what I consider to be very important views...

KH: ...We invite you to also check out our ongoing series on cults here in the Live Science section...)

Victims of cults in Southeast Ohio can take refuge at Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center, an accredited facility that specializes in acute and psychological trauma.

The non-profit facility is located in Albany and also treats victims of abusive relationships and sexual assault survivors. Wellspring hopes to restore clients to the normal lives they led before involvement in cults or abusive relationships, said Ron Burks, a counselor at Wellspring...

Hassan was a follower of Sun Myung Moon, a true believer in the South Korean evangelist's Unification Church. He used to literally fall to his knees, kowtowing in Moon's presence.

It was the late 1970s, and the aspiring poet and English teacher had chucked his studies at Queens College in New York and become, in his words, "a Moonie."...

...Now, working out of a spacious Cambridge office, Hassan dispenses information and counsel. A virtual one-man information center dedicated to exposing and debunking destructive cults, he is also a licensed mental health professional specializing in therapeutic interventions for cult victims and their families. He claims to have helped thousands of people break the psychological chains binding them to such "destructive cults" as the Unification Church, Transcendental Meditation, the Church of Scientology, est, the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, the Boston Church of Christ and Victory Chapel...)

The callers were parents of UIC students with a distressing situation in common: they said their children had been recruited by religious cults on campus and were at various stages of indoctrination. They wanted to know what legal action the university was planning to take, and when.

Ginsburg could only offer his personal sympathy and vow to help raise cult awareness among UIC students...

Ginsburg said two of the cases reported to his office deal specifically with University Bible Fellowship, an organization based in the campus neighborhood. The third student became involved with a Chicago fundamentalist church.

"Both of the students were initially approached by UBF people on campus," Ginsburg said...

...In 1985, University Bible Fellowship lost its organizational status at UIC when its campus adviser resigned, saying the group had misrepresented itself. The same year, several UIC students were arrested after two incidents of violence between members and former members...

...Ginsburg and campus minister Frank Anderson are investigating how other campuses deal with cults. They are revising a cult awareness pamphlet to give to students and discussing new ways to educate students about the potential danger of cult involvement and practices.)

..."Cults tend to use psychological coercion to recruit and keep their members, they believe 'the end justifies the means' if it reaps them funds or more members. They have a founder leader who is self-appointed and has charisma. The society it forms is elitist and totalitarian and they believe wealth doesn�t benefit the members or society."...)