I'm afraid none of this counts as scientific. You'll find Scientologists and Moonies claiming largely the same thing. Groups that become truly deranged, in the sense that the only reality they eventually are willing to perceive is their own manufactured reality, will protect that set of beliefs by becoming aggressive. The final expression of the cult mentality, if it feels sufficiently threatened, is suicide/murder. It shouldn't be too difficult to come up with examples of "peace-loving" millennial cults that eventually arrived at that extreme. Suicide, the most individualistic of acts, becomes something like a final surrender to the group identity. I also have no doubt that individual suicides are more freuent for members of cults that are well shy of the above level of self-deception, simply because it's people who are susceptible to suicide who are the most frequent converts to these groups. And it's the rare cult belief system that ultimately fulfills the convert's expectations. Being disappointed, and resisting the awareness and cause of that disappointment, are what make a cult. It's a self-referencial feedback system without many external controls or brakes.
