How to Know Your Friend's in a Cult

This cult, or cult-like body leaning toward becoming a cult, could be a job, job-related, an extracurricular group, a political group, or a more obvious religious or religious-masquerading org:

They bring up the cult or cult leader in most conversations.

They build their lives around it, often paying to do so with money and/or the majority of their time/energy, and extolling virtues that would not exist for them with this group (illusions) if they were not paying dues to be a part of it.

The group is their source of identity.

They try to get you to return to the group after you leave and fade from your life when you do not (the rigidity of conformity; control seeking of peers, never of their dear leader).

They believe their membership in this group makes them superior to others, an unhealthy state of mind, but not one that applies to those who are experiencing a better life due to group participation, though there's a gray area there at times, until the control ramps up (cult) or does not (initial excitement later tempered and integrated with other activities and relations).

They are too busy with their cult to reach out to anyone who is not.

They badmouth anybody who leaves and/or listen to and believe badmouthing about fellow group members they previously regarded as valued colleagues, friends or even family because their cult leaders told them to do so, rarely rising to their defense (participation, even simply via silence, in smear campaigns; gossiping). 

They retain a sense of entitlement to the unpaid, now, time or energy of those who have departed.

They are discouraged from interacting with or hiring anybody but the group members, and are offered commands disguised as recommendations from those playing the role of wise leader regarding areas that have nothing to with the cult, outside of its constant thirst for control (employers exerting authority re: employees' personal social media accounts; "no one wants to work"; the return to office narrative).

They have given up on even the prospect of free-flowing options or self-direction, feeling these attributes are not attributes at all, but fearful states to be avoided in favor of deference through a slow, thorough, deliberate process of allowing themselves to be chipped away at until they feel naked without a controlling force.

They shrink from your use of the word "cult" or any valid criticism of the mindstate being set upon them, which does not occur without their permission (outside of for those indoctrinated as children). That doesn't make cult abuse right, but rescinding one's belief in personal choice, in freedom, is often just that, a choice, and, sad as that choice is, it's also not a sympathetic choice, given the accompanying absence of sympathy for anyone who is not in the cult—meaning the majority of earthlings. 

The burn is they need to rescue themselves, even as they seem to be the least qualified to accomplish this vital goal. Still, I've learned you can't do that for them, and you also have no obligation to facilitate the above dictates. Stay in touch, but don't engage these authoritarian ways, which will sometimes mean you don't stay in touch. The good news is you can direct your love, time, energy to the abundance of non-cult-like people who still exist everywhere.