Deaths in Switzerland cult put focus on religious sects --- Ex-member sees signs of cult in local group By Terry Horne, The Indianapolis News, October 7, 1994, page A01

"Dennis Elslager was confused and lonely when he met Michael H. Peters in Tampa, Fla., about three years ago. Peters, a member of a Christian group that sometimes referred to itself as “the Body,” or “the church of Indianapolis,” offered him fellowship and a place to live. Elslager decided to join the Indianapolis man and his brethren. “I thought they were pretty serious with God,” he said. Instead, he discovered that he had joined a cult. In the wake of the deaths this week in Switzerland of 48 men, women and children linked to a little-known group called the Order of the Solar Temple, public attention is again focusing on religious sects — as it did after other cult incidents: The deaths in 1993 of 85 Branch Davidians by fire or gunshot in Waco, Texas. The deaths in 1978 of 913 members of the People’s Temple when they drank a cyanide-laced punch or were shot to death in Guyana.....
The public view of a cult may be closer to the views of Augusta Harting, an ex-Mormon who founded an Indianapolis area support group, Families Against Cults, 13 years ago. Harting contends cults are groups that try to control or dominate their members. And they share some characteristics: The leader or leaders aren’t accountable to anyone. The groups tend to be secretive and adopt an “us vs. them,” mentality. Intense pressure is brought on anyone who tries to quit."