There are, however, specific things that cults promise people with certain spiritual, political and emotional needs – certain sensitivities, vulnerabilities and desires. According to former Moonie turned counsellor Steve Hassan, cults don’t want people with psychological problems or illnesses-they prefer productive and intelligent individuals, who are able to give generously of the time, energy and money to the cause. Under the right conditions, he says, anyone could be convinced to join a cult. Philip Zimbardo supports these findings, adding that the majority of cult followers are well-educated, sensible and logical. But, as Stein has shown (citing an MI5 report),“there is no single, or simple, demographic or psychological profile of those likely to be indoctrinated. The third thing is total ideology, like, ‘You only need me and no other belief system has any relevance whatsoever.’ The fourth thing is the process of brainwashing … is creating deployable followers who will do what you say regardless of their own survival interests.Ĭonverts to cults are too easily dismissed as either victims, rebellious rich kids, drugged-out runaways, victims of domestic abuse, sufferers from personality disorders or simply gullible and naïve people. Two: The structure of the group isolates people. One: The leader is charismatic and authoritarian. Stein provides a five-point definition of a cult: Cult survivor and renowned expert on cults and totalitarianism. She herself survived over a decade of totalist control by a Marxist-Leninist cult, one of the many political cults now in existence. Her book Terror, Love and Brainwashing charts the deep similarities between religious cults, political cults and cults of self-improvement. What kind of people get drawn into cults? What do they lack? Why do some people feel the need to be under the control of an all-powerful leader? What answers are they looking for that society cannot provide? It Could Happen to AnyoneĬult survivor and recovery counsellor Alexandra Stein has done much to expand our understanding of what cults are. I wrote a novel, Nina X, about a child growing up in a cult and I went through five years of research into cult behaviour, in the attempt to answer certain questions once and for all. However, I am a fairly average person and my family has been involved with two different cult-like organisations and I myself have joined various alternative groups, which were subsequently accused of cult activity. The kind of people who get involved in such things must be freaks, we tell ourselves. When thinking about cults, we tend to position ourselves as well beyond their reach. Confronted by such strangeness, we might find ourselves asking not only why such cults exist, but why anyone would ever think of joining one. At the start of April, we were shocked to discover the details of the NXIVM cult-an organisation which “brainwashed and blackmailed women into being sex slaves.” The female members of this supposed “self help cult” were branded with a mark on the skin.
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