Fighting Cults
Although I have never been a part of a cult or been interested in cults, I recently became aware that several of my family members have been long time cult members. Since you are searching for this online, you may be like me, a person who does not think cults are particularly influential in American Society.
In addition, you may believe that cults are easy to identify given that they live on the fringe of American Society, and their members are people who we can easily identify as “weird” and/or religious fanatics. When I learned of my families involvement in a cult, I researched cults and found several texts on the topic.
The best text I can refer you to is Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Menace by Margaret Thaler Singer. On this page, I am providing some information that I have gathered about cults: how cults identify recruits, how cults target recruits, and the ways in which to fight cult recruitment. Please bear in mind while you read this that cults are a more powerful and prevalent problem in our society than you may have been previously aware. Until very recently, I would have told you that cults are a fringe and almost extinct problem.
Please note that there are significant differences between religion and cults. However, please also be aware that some religious groups and even churches of legitimate religious faiths are actually cults. Legitimate religious faiths actively fight cults.
How Cults Identify People to Recruit
Cult power is based on the number of people who belong to the cult, and the power and influence of cult members.
Cults recruit leaders who are very powerful in society and spend significant resources recruiting the powerful, wealthy and influential. By recruiting powerful people, cults more easily recruit every day members because most people want wealth and power, and are seeking the formula by which powerful and wealthy people have succeeded.
Cults target people who are at vulnerable times in their lives because they are more susceptible and vulnerable to master-disciple recruitment tactics. If you are at a painful time in your life, and have lost confidence in yourself, you are more likely to seek stability and strength in another person or group of people; rather than focus on your own beliefs and values .
Cults will recruit your family members even if those family members have never expressed interest in the cult or resisted cult recruitment in the past.
Cults are not limited to religious ideologies but also recruit through professional and non-religious associations and organizations.
* Please note that people who are in cults often do not even know they are in a cult. They believe they are in an organization or association that provides spiritual enlightenment or helps them to tap into their unrealized potential.
How Cults Target Recruits
The most important recruitment tactic of cults is to make the individual feel like they have no other choice than to join the cult. Cults will begin with positive and kind messages. Then the cult will begin to encourage feelings of guilt and shame within the recruit in order to break down your individual identity, and push you to follow the cult leaders.
Cults will encourage you to do things that cause shame and guilt. Then cults will require that you confess your sinful acts to cult members in a group setting, so that you can be forgiven by cult leaders.
Cults deploy their members to actively follow, harass and psychologically torture the recruit until the recruit agrees to become a member of the cult, and accept the complete authority of the cult leaders and cult master.
Cults use powerful “psychological” and “mind control” techniques to break down personal confidence and degrade the mental health of the recruit.
Cults subtly suggest that they will use violence, financial disempowerment, and do destroy personal relationships in order to isolate and dominate the individual.
Cults will actively control the information available to the recruit in order to make the recruit believe that the cult is all powerful.
Cults will actively try to block you from achieving your goals in order to create feelings of personal failure.
Cults now infect your computers and smartphones with technology to track your location, communications and all information you read and share on the Internet.
Cults are fascinated by symbols like the hidden meaning of numbers, letters in the alphabet and the true meaning of colors. Cults will “teach” about this new “knowledge” during the recruitment process in order to indoctrinate your mind into their way of thinking and way of life.
How to Fight Cult Recruitment
The most important way to fight a cult is to see through and expose the circular and dysfunctional thinking of the cult. “Cult Logic” is self serving, discriminatory, divisive and corrosive. Cults erode freedom, equality and justice in our society.
Once you have identified who the cult members are in your family, or among your friends, who are causing you to be recruited; disconnect with those people immediately. Cult members gain power by recruiting additional members, and the more loyal to and high up they are in the cult, the more cult resources they will use to recruit you. Disconnect from anyone and everyone who is connected to the cult.
Cults actively avoid being identified, and cults are most powerful when their member’s identity, their member’s secrets and even their existence are well hidden. Since cults are considerably more pervasive in society than most people know, when fighting a cult it is best to find subtle ways to share information about the cult member’s identity, secrets and beliefs. When exposed, cults retreat, but exposing a cult must be done carefully, so that cult members do not compromise you by framing you for criminal acts, mental disability or incompetence.
Cults often break the law, and knowledge of the law is very helpful.
If you find yourself unable to stop a cult from recruiting you, you must identify the cult leaders and find ways to expose their mental and emotional weaknesses. Cults find that recruiting powerful leaders who are emotionally and psychologically fragile creates the most loyal and committed cult leaders. Luckily, those leaders are often high profile and their is considerable public information about them. Cult leaders are psychologically fragile. This fragility is preyed upon and significantly increased by the cult recruitment process. Cult leader’s psychological and emotional fragility makes them easier to neutralize.
A sense of humor that mocks and diminishes the belief system of the cult and cult leaders, is often the most powerful way to bring cult loyalists back to a more real sense of self.
Cults rely on creating anxiety, guilt and shame within the recruit. The faster the recruit can realize that the accountability for feelings of shame are with the cult, and not themselves, the more effectively the recruit can fight the cult.
Always remember that cult power relies on uni-dimensional or singular thinking. The more the cult member conforms to cult ideas and beliefs, the greater the potential for the cult member to rise in the cult. Consequently, Cult leaders and strategists are very repetitive in their recruitment of a prospective member. They have a very limited “play book”. This simplicity makes cults easier to expose for simpleton thinking, and attack with substantive information and ideas.
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