Who in our over-stimulated, media-saturated, hyper-connected world would ever go and knowingly join a cult? The answer is no one.
No one wakes up one morning and decides to join a cult. Even if someone did, good luck trying to look up the address for the nearest local cult, for there isn't a single group that would ever admit to or advertise as being a cult. And why would they? The word 'cult' is explosive, loaded with connotations of brainwashing, lunatics, and mass suicide -- not exactly an ideal marketing strategy. For the most part, cults are keenly and obsessively aware of their public persona and consciously labor to maintain a positive image.
Scrolling through their websites, their mission statements are warmly fuzzy and vague; they promise redemption, renewal, rejuvenation, and reinvention. They offer answers, solutions, and happiness. It's all there, yours for the taking. What isn't included is the reality beneath the surface, the leader's demands for obedience from its members, the psychological pressure, the ability to subordinate all activities to the leader's will.
But most people don't find and join cults through Internet searches. Most people stumble upon them accidentally. A flyer in the laundromat for a free meditation class. A listing in the newspaper for a community service project. A poster at the library for a musical performance. Recruitment is purposefully subtle; the pull is gentle, gradual. Events are welcoming; attention is lavished on the visitor with the intention to create an environment that feels inclusive, nonthreatening, and safe. The visitor is warmly encouraged to return, to step in closer. It is not until later, often much later, that one may look around and, with great surprise, discover the strange terrain upon which one now stands.
Cults, whether they are offshoots of Eastern or Western traditional religions, are surprisingly
similar in their methods and means. The tactics and techniques used to recruit, maintain, and
disown noncompliant members seem pulled from a universal handbook of do's and don'ts.
With all of their rules and restrictions, laws and codes, ultimately cults are about grasping and preserving absolute and unconditional control.
Cults are fueled by and thrive on control. The willingness to surrender control comes from
excessive devotion to the leader and the leader's vision. The leader's personal agenda is
presented as a universal elixir, one that will eradicate both personal and global moral, ethical, and spiritual maladies. The follower's faith becomes both the provider and the enabler.
Faith in the mission, faith in the leader is an agent used to unify a disparate collection of strong individuals from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. The loss of the individual is the gain of the group. Individual achievements are discouraged, downplayed and finally eradicated while the group's achievements are encouraged, celebrated and memorialized.
To maintain the unity and cohesion of the cult, there is a clear separation between those 'inside' and 'outside.' Members are holy, special, chosen; outsiders are unholy, ignorant, toxic. Contact with the outside world -- often including family -- is discouraged, and family is redefined as the group itself. In this new family, subjugation and subservience is expected and obedience and control is demanded. From one's sexuality to one's personal hygiene, the leader possesses unquestioned, absolute authority over its members' lives. For a cult leader, it is imperative to seem infallible, to possess the answers, the solutions, the only route to salvation. The leader is fierce in singular righteousness, in the design to hail oneself absolute. A narcissist with insatiable needs for power, control, and, very often fame, the leader seeks affirmation of supreme authority through alignment with public figures and celebrities, achieving large numbers of recruits, and amassing private fiefdoms.
Through the need to please the leader, to ascend the ranks, to work to fulfill the leader's vision, cults dictate followers' actions and thoughts. Obedient members receive exalted status and conformity is enforced through notions of guilt, shame, and failure by both the leader and other members. A system of reporting on members for transgressions creates both an internal police force and opportunities for promotion and rewards for turning in brother and sister members. Those who violate the rules are punished and eventually, to maintain the coherent group unity, expelled. After time, the group assumes all roles -- family, friends, church, home, work, community, and departing, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, after years or even decades, without having a concrete safety net is challenging, and sometimes utterly impossible. The world on the other side appears frightening and overwhelming.
Just who is so easily swept up in the group-think and loss of individuality that are hallmarks of cults? A misconception is that there is a certain 'type' -- usually imbalanced, weak -- that not only finds themselves caught inside a cult but that isn't able to extract themselves from it. The truth is, there isn't one typical profile, 'type.' People with advanced degrees and people without any formal education are both equally likely to find themselves swaddled in orange robes or holed up in a compound. The urge to be a part of something is elemental, raw, and natural. To have a defined goal, a purpose, offers meaning. Most people strive for acceptance within social groups and long for affirmation from others. Be it in an office or country club, adjustments are made to conform, to gain approval and to advance.
In cults, extremism is the norm. When hyper devotion is expected behavior, for acceptance new recruits tend to rapidly thrust themselves into the prescribed lifestyle much to the chagrin of their family and friends on the 'outside.' There is no blame, no fault for having the audacity to plunge into belief, into faith so deeply, so forcefully that critical and analytical red flags, even if they once appeared, are snapped off. Belief and faith are such intoxicants that logical reason and facts become blurry and nonsensical.
While the boundary between cults and religion often feels confusing -- the Oxford English Dictionary's definitions differ only slightly with cults being "small" in size and possessing "beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister." Deciding what is strange or sinister certainly depends on the beholder. When accusations of being in a cult appear, members quickly and vehemently deny they are in a cult -- they are part of a 'spiritual path,' a 'special church,' a 'progressive movement' -- other groups are cults, but not theirs. No way.
Perhaps it is more useful to discern what a religious movement is or what a cult is by comparing its impact upon members' lives: does it compliment or control? At their best, healthy religions and organizations compliment rich, full lives by offering balance, community, comfort. At their worst, they lapse into vehicles demanding control. Cults limit lives into narrow, claustrophobic existences whose singular purpose is the cult itself.
Cult leaders, experts in psychological manipulation, prey on both the follower's ability to believe and need to belong. But this type of behavior is hardly limited to cults. After all, the aptitude and capacity to exploit human beings is universal, and, with the right ambitious and charismatic leader, any group easily could morph into a cult. What prevents that from occurring is that most established religions and groups have accountability mechanisms that restrain that from happening; cults, however, are purposefully designed so that the only restraints are the ones placed upon the people who, without even realizing it, have just done what they never thought they would do -- join a cult.
Is it a Cult? The Top Ten Signs the 'Group' You've Joined is Not what It Seems
Jayanti Tamm is the author of Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult (Three Rivers Press). She is a Visiting Professor in the MFA Program at Queens College, CUNY.
Evangeline Griego: What I Learned About Cults While Making God Willing
Cult - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cult | Define Cult at Dictionary.com
Wow, christianity is a cult? Who knew?
I'm copying this quote by Calculator because I think it bears repeating.
They all have a history of control, violence, manipulation, promises of fullfilement, redemption, life after death...LMAO..
One persons "faith" is just another man's "cult"...the first requirement for any is a weak mind ..
Abusers in Islam or the Catholic Church (etc. etc.) have histories of violence and control, but not the religions themselves. Obviously they offer promises of redemption and life after death - that is what religion is all about.
The difference between that, however, and a cult is that their is an individual person who claims to be able to give that redemption, not a god or savior. It is not up to an objective authority (ex: Quran or Bible) to decide what is sin, punishment, or worthy of praise. Instead, judgment, fulfillment, and salvation is left only to that of the leader of the cult.
Oh, but a text of scripture is not an objective authority. It's just a book. In fact, it is a vague book that is open to a wide variety of interpretations. Some of the interpretation depends on the religious leaders. So in some sense "judgment, fulfillmenÂt, and salvation" is still left to the will of the leader of the cult, er I mean church.
On the other hand, reading this list I'm immediately thinking "oh, that one applies to Mormonism", "#7 is totally auditing from Scientology". The list sounds exactly like Mormonism, Scientology, and even Evangelical Christianity. Really, I'm sorry to break it to you but if you belong to those three religions, please read that list carefully. I'm sorry to break it to you but you are seriously in a cult.
One other thing: the article says "Perhaps it is more useful to discern what a religious movement is or what a cult is by comparing its impact upon members' lives: does it compliment or control?" Um, what's the difference to someone who is inside the cult? They will certainly rationalize that the control is for their benefit and compliments their life. Also, isn't the lack of thinking for yourself in deference to the leader a form of control, even if subtle. I think the author describes how an outsider sees a more abusive cult/religion. One can certainly rationalize that their cult isn't like that.
Yes, organized religions do come in a range of leadership styles, but I am not familiar with any major religious faith that achieves the level of authority described in terms of behavior.of cult leadership. For instance, I know of no organized religion that is free from criticism. Some welcome greater degrees of open criticism. But all have routes for hearing internal criticism. In the U.S., external criticism is freedom of speech.
It is a big mistake to write off whatever it is we do not choose for ourselves by calling it "a cult," almost as big a mistake as being unable to recognize cult behavior when we see it. I am glad to see the analysis of cults here. I am not surprised that there may well be other descriptions that also fit. So lets not squabble over "My description of a cult is better than your description," unless you are trying to start your own cult?