Of these three, only love bombing was prominently present, but I think it was actually genuine feeling in the "low rank" members (and I've talked to quite a few). Of uniforms, I think they all had unassuming trinkets/medalions hung from their necks. Food sharing was not present and the mentioned lunch was not more special than any other lunches I went to with other groups of people.
I think there were quite a few other interesting factors at play, and that's why I suggested we could all learn something from a discussion about it. I don't have anything like a complete analysis ready myself, but I detected significant amounts of:
casual, friendly touch - there's nothing wrong with it and I would like to see more of it in other communities,
making good use of good looking people and sexual attractiveness - subtle enough to not be pretentious,
telling people to think for themselves (but I guess on meta-level, you already know the conclusion you are supposed to think of),
scripted/planned/predictable ways to evoke positive emotions,
honesty about emotions and subjective experience, and full acceptance of this by other members,
generally positive atmosphere of friendliness and helpfulness that carries over to the rest of the world, not just the in-group,
excellent stage/public speaking/PR skills of the top ranking members,
mixing in genuinely worthy/morally sound cases, like stopping wars (but from LW point of view it looks mostly like cheering than taking action).
I guess it's not easy to find a balance between manipulation, and the "reverse manipulation" where people sabotage themselves to signal that they are not manipulating; between focusing on impressions instead of substance, and not being aware of the impressions; between blindness towards biases, and ignoring human nature. Especially in a group where different people will have wildly different expectations for what is acceptable and what is cultish.
Sometimes it feels like a choice between losing rationality and losing momentum. Optimizing to never ...
I was invited by a stranger I met on a plane and actually went to a meeting of Raëlians (known in some LW circles as "the flying saucer cult") in 沖縄, Japan. It was right next to Claude Vorilhon's home, and he came himself for the "ceremony" (?) dressed in a theatrical space-y white uniform, complete with a Jewish-style white cap on his head. When saying his "sermon" (?) he spoke in English and his words were translated into Japanese for the benefit of those who didn't understand. And yes, it's true he talked with me briefly and then hugged me (I understand he does this with all newcomers, and it felt 100% fake to me). I then went on to eat lunch in an 居酒屋 with a group of around 15 members, who were all really friendly and pleasant people. I was actually treated to lunch by them, and afterwards someone gave me a ~20 minute ride to the town I wanted to be in, despite knowing they won't see me ever again.
If you have ever wondered how it is possible that a flying saucer cult has more members than EA, now it's time to learn something.
Note: I hope it's clear that I do not endorse creating cults, nor do I proclaim the EA community's inferiority. It hasn't even crossed my mind when I wrote the above line that any LW'er would take it as a stab they need to defend against. I'm merely pointing to the fact that we can learn from anything, whether it's good or bad, and encouraging a fresh discussion on this after I gathered some new data.
Let's do this as a Q&A session (I'm at work now so I can't write a long post).
Please ask questions in comments.