love bombing

Love bombing is an attempt to influence a person by lavish demonstrations of attention and affection.

Love bombing - a practice used by Centrepoint.

The term 'love bombing' originated with the Unification Church, the Moonies.

Critics of cults often cite love bombing as one of the features that may identify an organization as a cult.

Critics hold that love bombing is insincere or with an ulterior motive and that it is used to reduce the subject's resistance to recruitment.

Dr. Geri-Ann Galanti (in a sympathetic article) writes: "A basic human need is for self-esteem.... Basically [love bombing] consists of giving someone a lot of positive attention."

These include the derogatory term "Moonies", a special use of the word "indemnity", and the expressions "doomsday cult", "love bombing", and "crazy for God" - the last coined by Moon himself.

Critics also claim that Opus Dei uses a cult-like recruitment technique called "love bombing", in which potential members are showered with flattery and admiration by members of the organization in order to entice them into joining.

The organization cites twenty-six key forms of mind control, which includes hypnosis, peer pressure and groupthink, love bombing, the rejection of old values, confusing doctrine, use of subliminal messages, time-sense inhibition, dress codes, disinhibition, diet, confession, fear, and chanting and singing.

Opus Dei has been accused of deceptive and aggressive recruitment practices such as showering potential members with intense praise ("Love bombing"), instructing numeraries to form friendships and attend social gatherings explicitly for recruiting purposes, and requiring regular written reports from its members about those friends who are potential recruits.