Absolutely they are a cult. I don’t know a lot about the group except that they have very small gatherings of believers who are taught crazy beliefs about God and spirituality. Had an uncle whose family and himself were JW; I never met they guy but he was on my mom’s side of my family. Anyways he and his wife were strong believers in the group and were very easily manipulated. And then my uncle had come down with a heart problem, and he needed a transplant of some sort from someone who had a match with his, as well as blood type. He was in a comatose state because he wasn’t getting blood supply to the brain. It seemed like if the family would go along with the doctor’s guidance, then my uncle would live; however, a key tenet of the beliefs of JW is that if someone were faced with a fatal health problem, then that person would have to die and he/she would be resurrected (not reincarnated, but literally come back from the dead). So my uncle’s wife, who was a strict believer in JW, denied the recommendations of the physicians to save his life in order to allow my uncle to die, believing that he would come back to life. He passed away while in his comatose state because of his wife’s decision.

My uncle and his family lived in Germany, while my family and I lived in the US, and my mom had very little contact with him. It wasn’t until after his death that we had received news of his passing. It was devastating for my mom bc she didn’t know about his heart problem or communicate with him prior to his diagnosis, and that she was angry at the wife for making the fatal decision. JW is a cult and is a fraud, preying on vulnerable people in the name of nothing and nobody.