What is a Cult?
Last month I mentioned on social media that I was going to talk about what a cult is.
This is a very important topic for two reasons:
One. Some people generalize and say that EVERYTHING is a cult - which is not true. What this does is camouflage some really evil stuff going on in the world. It’s a kind of blanket moral relativism.
And two - there are some things that are indeed very culty and defining it clearly would help people spot problematic groups they might be involved. There are relationships and families that behave like cults. There are corporations and political parties that when properly analyzed are indistinguishable from cults.
So - what is a cult? - I’m going to get to that.
In the space of cult education and deprogramming there are many people that have done incredible work in this field already:
Members of ICSA (The International Cultic Studies Association)
Janja Lalich
Rick Ross
and Steve Hassan with his very detailed and comprehensive BITE Model.
I’m going to put links to all their work in the show notes or if you’re on youtube in the description below.
I think they’re all very astute people and what I’m going to present is not a challenge to their definitions and lists but rather my particular view on cults and cult dynamics. Remember, I am not a clinician or an academic, just someone who's been seriously deceived and figured some shit out.
There are a few things that are important when going through lists like these. One of the things I see happening is that people (who are actually in cults) read these kinds of checklists and say “Oh - this doesn't apply to me it only applies to other groups.”
It’s really important to become a student of pattern recognition when looking at systems like these. You could discount a point by saying well we didn't pray, or we didn't meditate, or we didn't eye gaze, or we didn’t wear white, or we didn't call them priests, or we didn't make offerings. Those are the specifics. We need to pull further back to see the generalities. The PATTERN. One group may call something meditation, another focusing, another sitting in presence. But they’re not really that different.
Why do people feel the need to argue that their thing or ritual is different from the others? Because it's very very hard for people to look at these lists and truly (without being emotionally vested) analyze their situation and say: “Yeah, I might be in a group like this. This thing I’m involved in might be an abusive relationship or might be a cult”
It's critical to remain as open-minded as possible and be willing to question whatever situation you're in and see if there are matches to cult characteristics.
It’s important to note that people who are in these coercive or cultic environments have resistance towards these kinds of lists. They will justify what they're doing, and try to separate themselves from the pattern being exposed in the list. There's a curious thing that happens in the human brain. I know many people who stand for non-violence, and against coercion, and yet - I see them being coercive towards other people - and then when questioned they say: “well, this is not coercion - this is for their own good or the good of society at large.” The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
There's a rather common inability of people to recognize that the thing that they say is bad is the thing they're actually . It’s cognitive dissonance.
To give you a clear and bizarre example of this blindspot; When I was still in NXIVM one of the books Raniere recommended to a few of us was Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of ‘Brainwashing’ in China, by Robert Jay Lifton
We were literally studying what he was doing to us - but we couldn’t fathom that possibility. I highly recommend this book as it’s a chilling study of what we are currently going through as a society.
Lifton's research for the book began in 1953 with a series of interviews he did with American soldiers who had been held captive during the Korean War. In addition to interviews with 25 Americans, Lifton also interviewed 15 Chinese citizens who had fled their homeland after being subjected to indoctrination in Chinese universities. From these interviews, Lifton identified the tactics used by Chinese communists to cause drastic shifts in opinion and personality - in essence, "brainwash" American soldiers.
I’ll get to my list in a moment but it’s worth mentioning that in his book, Lifton outlines the "Eight Criteria for Thought Reform”. They are:
Milieu Control.
Mystical Manipulation.
Demand for Purity.
Confession.
Sacred Science.
Loading the Language.
Doctrine over person.
Dispensing of existence.
If this is of interest to you, do yourself a favor and study Lifton’s work. It's as relevant today as it was when he wrote it.
So - what is a cult? We could try and narrow it down to a very simple definition. For example, Amy Morin, LCSW, says
“A cult is an organized group whose purpose is to dominate cult members through psychological manipulation and pressure strategies. Cults are usually headed by a powerful leader who isolates members from the rest of society.”
That’s a pretty good high-level generalized definition. In my experience, a single short definition is useful but what I’d like to do is get into the numerous characteristics that make up a cult.
So - I’m going to give you my list of CULT characteristics and tactics (There are 25 of them):
Number 1 - PATHOLOGY. The leader of a cultic group often has some kind of Cluster B PATHOLOGY… at minimum malignant narcissism. This could go all the way up to sociopathy or psychopathy. Very often it is covert. They might wear a mask or veneer of goodness to use their follower's hopes and dreams to entrap them. They will appeal to their follower’s most cherished values - but, the followers are always reminded, the leader is the superior being and they have a lot to do to try and reach this greatness. The followers are left in a never-ending spiral of self-doubt, shame, and low self-esteem while the cult leader gains fuel from their adoration and obedience. Check out the work of Daniel Shaw who wrote an amazing book called “Traumatic Narcissism and Recovery: leaving the Prison of Shame and Fear.” One of the things he talks about in his book is how cult leaders activate deep shame in their followers while he or she denies and abdicates their own shame and instead takes on the mantle of a supernatural being. This tends to be common to malignant narcissists in general, but Daniel Shaw relates it specifically to cult leaders and authoritarian leaders. Followers are by and large good, well-meaning people WITH a conscience and they cannot imagine their leader may not have any. They have to do all kinds of mental gymnastics to explain their leader's behavior which is often Sadistic and Machiavellian. Critically important is waking up from this Pollyanna Denial. It’s the blind insistence that all other people have empathy just because we have it. An empathic person without the awareness of how this all works, cannot truly make sense of a dark triad individual. Once they do - everything changes. Those of you who have seen “The Vow” on HBO saw my journey of waking up to who Raniere really was. I assumed the lack of emotion he displayed was indicative of him being emotionally and spiritually advanced. It never occurred to me that I was dealing with a malignant pathology. An empty shell of a person masquerading as a human. One of the defenses followers use is saying things like: “I’ve never seen these behaviors you are alleging. The leader has been nothing but kind” They may NOT have seen anything. Leaders with these pathologies are very strategic. They have a public persona and a private persona. How many times have you heard stories about people that only abuse their spouses or families when no one’s looking? It’s exactly the same pattern. The other defense against this is something called Betrayal Blindness. The victim will get angry at the person trying to wake them up rather than the abuser. This is because truly acknowledging the betrayal and abuse would be too much for their psyche to handle. It’s easier to lash out at the person trying to tell them the truth about the leader.
Number 2 - LOVE BOMBING. Entrance into the group can be a euphoric and seemingly transcendent experience. Participants report a feeling of finally belonging, finding their purpose, finding their tribe or their people. In terms of a pattern, it’s a complete match to the first stage in a relationship with a narcissist. You are showered with praise and they idealize you to the point that you become enamored with the way they see you. You will feel a sense of love and belonging you have yearned for your whole life. In a cult, the existing members are on their best behavior and give the newbie an unforgettable experience of community and high-vibe excitement. It's by design. This will change once the newbie is part of the group. Then the devaluation and coercion will set in. The existing members can't see what they are participating in. They are told that once the new recruit is in, they need to get them on the path of serious growth as fast as possible. Most people will rationalize the abuse as love as the existing members believe they are doing important work and the newbie is desperately holding on to initial high. These patterns of induction are an isomorphic metaphor for the early stages of the Narcissistic Abuse cycle. It’s all the same. Just different scales of coercion. It could be a cult of one or a cult of millions.
Number 3 - OBEDIENCE. The leader requires absolute unconditional OBEDIENCE to themselves and the ideology. There is always some narrative as to why this should be so. Things like “In order for me to take you to enlightenment or ultimate awareness you must relinquish your control or your insistence on self-protection… you must let go of your ego.” The follower, desperate for these promises of greatness, surrenders to the psychopath. In Raniere’s case, he sold the idea that Slavery is Freedom. Yep - right out of 1984. The follower by the way does not necessarily think they're an obedient automaton. They truly believe they have a choice. If you were to ask them, could they travel anywhere they want or associate with anyone they want, they might insist they can. But, that is rarely the case. They do have SOME choices… within an extremely narrow band of options. Can they serve anything other than the agenda of the cult? NO. Can they choose what branch of activity to be involved with inside the cult? To some degree YES. It's what Janja Lalich calls BOUNDED CHOICE in her book of the same name.
Number 4 - INFANTILIZATION. The structure of the cultic community is such that the followers are infantilized by the leader. The leader regards themselves as a kind of parent or god to all their children and conversely, followers feel like they ARE children and project attributes of mother and father onto the leader. Not only is this prevalent in religious cults or corporations, but also in society at large. Many people tend to look at their leaders as powerful all-wise parental figures and feel obedient to whatever they say. Think for example of news anchors on television. They are seen as somehow having some special knowledge, they have the information, and they know something that we the commoners don't know. It connects to a very primitive dynamic in humans. Cult leaders sell the idea that they will reparent or reprogram the followers to become great or holy or whatever hogwash they are pedaling. What they want to revel in - is the feeling of control over their populace. It’s part of their messianic complex. In order to break out of this trap we need to individuate and grow up. Many people have still not individuated.
BTW I’m going to be doing a course discussing the psychology involved in each of these tactics, and how to resist and break free from them. If that is something you’d be interested in, sign up on my mailing list on my website and you’ll be the first to know when it goes live.
Number 5 - ISOLATION. Just as in a relationship with a Narcissistic Abuser, the cultic system is designed to break down the participant so that they lose touch with friends, family, and their own knowledge and intuition. They have to be isolated from their support system so that they can be bonded to the cult leader and the system. Their former support system is seen as a threat by the leader. Therefore it has to be dismantled. This isolation is achieved by convincing the follower that their former friends and family do not have their best interest at heart and are in fact holding them back. It's a terrible trap because usually their friends and family are the ones that are deeply concerned and want to help - but every concern they voice becomes proof they don't approve of the follower's new life. The followers will defend against this by saying that they now realize they need supportive people around them… people at the same frequency or who hold similar values. They might even buy into the cult leader's paranoia that their former friends and family are trying to block them from their growth, dreams, and pursuit of their mission to save the world.
Number 6 - MISSION. Early on, the follower is shown that this movement/group is much bigger than each of them. There is a very important MISSION that requires absolute devotion and commitment. It’s life and death because if they don’t succeed humanity and civilization will fall. They need to save the world! The common denominator for people who join cults is that they are idealists. That’s how many of them get hooked. That’s how I got hooked. The mission they are offered mirrors their greatest hopes and dreams. They are being sold a kind of utopia. A Utopian Collectivist Ideology. That utopia is like a drug to the seeker who wants desperately to help the world become a better place. There are so many issues with this. Firstly, it's the onramp to fascism and a totalitarian community. Secondly, it’s a lie. It's the bait being used to capture them, keep them enslaved to the ideology, and it makes it very hard for them to leave. The follower begins to think that the mission, their own values, and the great and noble leader are all one and the same thing. To give up the group and the mission is to give up their most cherished values. And they’d rather die than do that. They become trapped inside their own vision of goodness. Their defense to outsiders is ‘Don’t you think it's important to make the world a better place’ and of course - who’s going to say NO to that? But, to the leader who is a wolf in sheep's clothing, the mission is the perfect ruse. It’s flying the flag of service to enslave the followers. This pattern can be seen in NGO’s and charities run by Malignant Narcissists. This leads to the next one.
Number 7 - DOCTRINE OVER PERSON. This term comes from the work of Robert J Lifton. In a cult, the mission or ideology is seen as more important than the individual person. This means that you need to put aside all your personal concerns, your need for comfort, and even your need for self-preservation. The mission could be saving a species, saving the earth, saving sinners’ souls or saving the world from some dark forces. Essentially the battle is SO large and SO important and you are just a small cog who must sacrifice everything! You are told that your humanity is flawed and lesser than this great ideology. Your humanity is weak. In fact, your humanity is the problem. I’ve been in spiritual and environmental groups where humanity is seen as disgusting and parasitic. This promotes profound self-hatred and is anti-humanity. It causes cognitive dissonance because you are told love of self is important but also that you are a piece of shit. It is unresolvable - until you exit the coercive environment. Doctrine over person, by the way, is a growing malaise in our society at the moment.
Number 8 - BREAKING DOWN BOUNDARIES. The leader will use the follower's values to convince them that their resistance (which can be a justifiable suspicion they might have) is part of their problem. Their growth is being hampered by their inability to truly surrender, the cult leader says. Their boundaries are causing limitations. This sets them up for all kinds of abuse. Physical, sexual, and financial. The cult leader points out that your discomfort is a sign that you are unhealed or resistant. It’s a barrier to your greatness. This opens the door to abuse because any resistance to what is being done to you is YOUR limitation. It’s extremely convenient for the leader who wants to walk over your boundaries and do whatever they want to their followers. Pretty soon the follower feels that any resistance they have to anything being asked of them is part of their problem. They become complicit in shattering their own boundaries and healthy sense of self. The follower will defend this by calling it healthy full transparency.
Number 9 - DATA MINING. In order for the leader to get some kind of leverage they have to look for the follower's weaknesses, fears, insecurities, and desires. Early on in the induction process, there might be lengthy intake forms or sessions where the follower is required to divulge their struggles. This is for their own good the leader says. To help free them. Secrets are unhealthy the followers are taught. All this information will be used later to control them. One of the most useful questions in this data mining process is “What is your greatest fear?” This will be brought back up when the follower is resistant. Don’t you want to get over that fear? Do you want to be ruled and controlled by your fear your whole life or do you want freedom? Your fears might be used to PUSH you - but also to CONTROL you. Let's say your greatest fear is ABANDONMENT. One day in the cult your conscience cries out and you resist something you are being urged to do. Knowing that you have this fear the leader will use this to force your hand. They might withdraw their attention - or the affection of the entire group. The potential of being shunned for not complying will feel like death to you. In the WORST case, whatever information they gather on you can be used as straight-out blackmail. Because of all the data mining, they know exactly how to play you.
Number 10 - SPECIAL KNOWLEDGE. The cult leader promotes the narrative that he or she has some special knowledge or abilities that are being given to the followers. The leader often has an elitist or messianic worldview and tells the followers that they are special or chosen. This can be part of the love-bombing phase. The leader convinces their followers that he or she has the knowledge to truly understand reality and no one else does. And here’s the kicker…. the followers have the capacity to get it as well - because they are in this group. It’s a shared fantasy that is often detached from reality. It activates a narcissistic impulse in the followers which makes them feel superior to all others. If you’ve experienced being the black sheep of the family or marginalized in some way, this is like an addictive drug. In some groups, there is the belief that they have a unique mathematical paint-by-numbers methodology to understand human psychodynamics. In other groups, the followers are told they are Gods. In others, they are one of the few chosen who will survive the coming cataclysm. This specialness bonds the followers to the leader (who is the giver of this mind-blowing information) but also creates a division between the cult members and the rest of society.
(Music Break)
I want to take a quick break to tell you that one of the things I would love to do is put out more content about all the things that fascinate me and hopefully you. I’m on a personal mission to expose patterns of abuse and coercion and the many forms it takes at multiple scales in society. Accomplishing this endeavor takes two things. Time and resources. If you like what I’m doing, I would love your help in achieving this. I’ve started a Patreon account as a way to get support for this podcast and channel. I’ll also be offering some exclusive content over there that you might enjoy.
Please head over to patreon.com/MarkVicente to help support my endeavors - so I can keep things going! Thank you!
(Music Out)
All right, let’s continue!
Number 11 - US vs THEM. Fear is a powerful motivator. You can bind a group very tightly by having them unify against a common enemy. Even if it’s completely fabricated and false. All that matters is that the followers believe it. First step? Paint a picture of the enemy. This is accomplished using keywords. Names. Suppressive, Terrorist, Communist, Radical, Subversive, ANTI fill-in-the-blank. Anyone who does not believe in the ideology of the group is to be avoided and classified with these terms. The leader may give lip service to the idea that we must unify all people and all people should be loved - but in actuality, there's US and the great unwashed unclean deviant ignorant evil OTHERS. While it solidifies the followers into fervent devotees it creates an enormous amount of stress in their psyches. They cannot successfully hold these two opposing thoughts in their mind and can become quite psychotic in their hatred of who they have been told is the enemy. On a societal level, you can see this deranged behavior on social media. Highly intelligent and educated people who say they are committed to compassion and civilized conduct become vile to the people they have been told are the enemy. When challenged on this, they cannot even go there. It's like it's filed away in some part of their brain they do not have access to. It takes a very strong person to admit they fell for the ruse and made grave errors in judgment. Us vs Them is an incredibly important thing to understand as it’s the fuel that currently fires most if not all political campaigns.
Just a side note: In my list, I’m not going to spend time on things like hierarchical structures or the requirement to enroll others because while those are definitely present in cults, they are also common in many industries. However, I do want to address…
Number 12 - ACCUMULATION OF WEALTH AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOLLOWERS. Cult leaders are typically obsessed with accumulating wealth and power. In order to do this they have to keep their overhead as low as possible and in some cases get the wealthier followers to donate their own money to the cause. The cult leaders’ workforce IS the devoted followers who are volunteering their time, effort, and life force. The cult leader will convince the volunteers that working for the mission is a great privilege and should not be looked down upon. The followers, whose self-esteem and self-worth have already been worn down, buy in and become the unpaid workforce. The leader will accumulate financial wealth, houses, cars, planes, expensive clothes, etc while the followers often live in abject poverty, struggling to put food on the table. The justification for this disparity is that the leader needs to be able to interact with the normal world at a high level in order to change it. They have to look good to materialistic people. When friends and family question the follower on their poverty the response can be “Money isn't everything” or “Materialism is the big problem in the world” or “Would you rather me be happy or stinking rich… because I would hope you who champion my happiness” None of these arguments make any sense. But the follower has been programmed to reject what they call materialism. The cult leader meanwhile embraces materialism with vigorous lust.
Number 13 - CONSTANTLY BUSY. The participants or devotees are kept constantly busy with very little time to think or engage in the outside world. This can involve long hours of prayer or meditation or being kept busy with work to the point of sleep deprivation. New committees to address new problems, impossible workloads, multiple job descriptions, endless tasks, needing to be present every time the leader wants to address their flock, spaces to be cleaned and reorganized, emergency tasks that require you to drop everything - BUT you are still responsible for failing on the thing you had to drop. Sleep deprivation is key here. The more tired the followers are, the less cognitive function they have to rationally question stuff that just does not make sense. It keeps them docile and irrational. The followers could be required to try to solve impossible situations or just perform mindless tasks, convincing themselves that it has to have something to do with the mission. We wouldn't be asked to do it if it wasn't important - right? And then - there are always emergencies in a cult.
Either a real or perceived attack from the outside,
A suppressive on the inside,
A member who wants to leave,
Or someone breaking a rule.
The followers now have to work harder or commit more deeply in order to resolve the problem. And then there’s damage control… so much damage control - which the cult leader blames on the followers. If they only worked harder or kept their eye on the ball the leader wouldn’t have to be dealing with attacks from the world and dark forces out to get him or her. What cult leaders do - is instill fear and confusion in the cult population because of the terrible threat out there… and then provide the answers. What none of the followers realize is that the problem was created by the leader. Either due to their sloppiness or on purpose. Nothing pulls people together more than a crisis that threatens the mission. And the crisis will usually arise when the leader is being questioned about something problematic. The political equivalent of the film “Wag The Dog”. The similarities to our current political world are painfully obvious. Friends and family will notice this insane busyness - with the person they love. They may say things like ‘Why don't we just spend some time together hanging out… just being’. In the follower's mind, doing nothing is almost sinful as it steals from actualizing the mission. The irony is that while they are killing themselves for the mission, the cult leader is hanging out and relaxing a LOT.
Number 14 - RESPONSIBILITY WITH NO AUTHORITY. The followers, who are now the cult workforce, are made to feel responsible for everything bad that happens but have no authority to change anything. Typically everything good that happens is caused by the leader. Everything bad, by the followers. The followers are told they are not devout enough, they are having negative thoughts, they are not standing up for the leader enough, they are cowards… whatever the insult. They are 100% responsible but have no ability to do anything about it. It’s a very convenient system. The cult leader can do any number of stupid, immoral, or criminal things and they are not to blame for the consequences. This pattern erodes the self-esteem the followers might have had, that they can create and affect things in their lives. Hopelessness sets in and they just put one foot in front of the other, goalless and lacking in any ambition outside the confines of the cult.
Number 15 - REDEFINING MORALITY. In a cult, you learn pretty soon that there is societal morality and the superior morality (which can be amorality) of the group. In order to shift the follower from societal morality to this new morality of the cult, the leader has to show the issues with societal morality. It's not that hard to point out that society is pretty much full of shit. Leaders in society insist their activities are moral and righteous, but they're clearly doing immoral things. Pointing out these inconsistencies makes the cult leader's job pretty easy. The idea is to get the follower to buy into the cult's “more evolved" morality. One of the ways this is accomplished is through what Lifton calls ‘loading the language’. By redefining terms and words and giving them new meanings you are literally hacking the person’s psyche. In NXIVM, Ethics was defined as consistency and dissociated from the concept of morality. As long as you were consistent, you were ethical. When you start messing around with people's deep beliefs of what is good and what is bad it can cause an abandonment of long-held core beliefs. Now the cult can easily encourage behavior that is considered immoral or illegal in mainstream society, such as sexual exploitation, abuse, or criminal activities. The leader may justify such actions by claiming that they are necessary to achieve the higher goals of THE MISSION, which include protecting the group from external threats. Cults redefine morality in ways that serve their own interests, rather than the interests of the members - or society as a whole. In essence, they manipulate the members into accepting their moral code as the only valid one and then they use this as a tool for control and manipulation. Cult members defend their new moral high ground by comparing it to societal corruption, which is unfortunately very easy to do.
Number 16 - COERCION & CONTROL. One of the noticeable traits of malignant narcissists is a pathological need for control. They try to control everyone in their orbit. What you eat, who they spend time with, what you do, and what you think. At the extreme, it becomes a kind of messianic fantasy. They want to be a god in control of everything. In a cultic system run by such an individual, there is a constant atmosphere of fear. There is always the prospect of punishment for stepping out of line. Examples will be made of people who question the narrative or defectors from ‘the mission’ - and everyone knows it. My warrior wife Bonnie Piesse famously said: “Any system that uses guilt, shame, coercion, bullying, and fear as a tool of control is highly problematic. It doesn't just happen in a personal growth cult, it’s everywhere.” A term used in discussions on domestic abuse or intimate partner violence is Coercive Control. Coercive control is a pattern of controlling behaviors that creates an unequal power dynamic in a relationship, making it difficult for the victim to leave. It erodes a person's autonomy and self-esteem through acts of intimidation, threats, and humiliation. Cultic coercion is basically coercive control at a larger scale. The cult leader is basically abusing a large family. Everything and everyone is controlled and monitored and you are punished for stepping out of line. Coercion is a very difficult thing for people to see. Firstly it can happen very slowly AND it’s not clearly codified in our laws. Check out the work of the Consent Awareness Network. They are working very hard to get a definition of consent in penal codes everywhere. Their definition of consent is FGKIA. Consent is - freely given, knowledgeable informed agreement by a person with the capacity to reason.
Number 17 - SECRECY & LIES. I describe a cult as being very much like the NSA or CIA in terms of the way it handles information. Information is on a need-to-know basis and there is a great deal of compartmentalization. There is a culture of secrecy that the lower ranks learn pretty soon not to challenge. It also means that no-one has the full picture of what’s really going on (except the leader). The entire system becomes an extension of the paranoid delusion of the leader. Also, to protect the mission, you are encouraged to lie to outsiders. In NXIVM, on day one we were taught a class called Honesty and Disclosure. It started with a series of questions:
What is honesty?
Is not honest dishonest?
Is dishonest bad?
Can one ever be 100% honest?
During the debrief from the head trainer, we were given an example from
World War 2. The Nazis come to your door to look for Jews. You are in fact hiding Jews in your basement. When the Nazis question you, do you tell them the truth, or do you lie? Of course, you lie! This then becomes conflated with all authority. Because the cult educational model has already established that everyone outside of the system is corrupt, immoral, and likely evil - lying is justified. It’s OK because it’s for a higher purpose. The mission and the leader must be protected at all costs. When a family asks a follower why the secrecy and lies, the follower will state that they are an open book. “Ask me anything!” they say. But their responses are often rehearsed talking points and circular word salad.
Number 18 - SPYING ON EACH OTHER. In order for the cult leader to have their finger on the pulse of their followers they have to create a system of reporting back up the chain of command. A system - where everyone checks in on everyone else. In other words, spies on everyone else. On the surface, it’s called accountability or care or something that sounds benevolent. But what it really is is a system where everyone is spying and reporting on each other. Looking back in history this system shows up in authoritarian regimes where for the good of the party, problematic individuals had to be reported and weeded out. This would result in public humiliation or corrective punishment. In NXIVM, a coach tree system was used to disseminate information down to the lower ranks but it was also used to report problems up the ranks to the leader. In other cults, mentoring or healing sessions may be used to flag problems in the followers. It becomes an environment filled with fear and paranoia. You don’t want to be the person who steps out of line and gets reported. When challenged by an outsider, the cult member will insist this is all about caring for others. A neighborhood watch of sorts. It’s definitely not that. This then leads to…
Number 19 - CONFESSION. This one is so insidious because it utterly breaks a person down. When a follower strays from the path, in other words, breaks the Orwellian rules, the cause of their error needs to be revealed so it won't happen again. This is framed as something that is good for the person and the system at large. A lack of transparency is seen as a flaw in the follower. Remember, you are not allowed to have boundaries. Private, unexpressed thoughts are a problem! In Maoist China, Struggle Sessions or denunciation rallies were violent public spectacles where people accused of being "class enemies" were publicly humiliated, accused, beaten, and tortured by people with whom they were close. Usually conducted at the workplace, classrooms and auditoriums where students were pitted against their teachers. Friends and spouses were pressured to betray one another, and children were manipulated into exposing their parents. Often, out of desperation, the targeted person would confess to things they never said or did. Social media, by the way, has become the modern-day equivalent of a Maoist Struggle Session. Confess your transgressions or else. In a cult, a system of CONFESSION is used for multiple purposes. To gather secret information from the followers, to normalize not having privacy or boundaries, and to encourage self-punishment and self-hatred. This results in having little to no self-esteem and absolutely no ability to fight the system. Revealing one's innermost secrets is just part of the culture. In NXIVM, if you failed or breached you would do a number of things. Firstly, write a detailed breach report and then a breach plan of how you would fix it. You were then required to go and apologize to all the many people your failure affected. This could also involve standing in front of the entire class doing a grand confession. In other words, I’m sorry that I’m such a piece of shit - I will try harder.
Number 20 - TRIANGULATION. Very common in cultic communities is that the followers are having all kinds of disputes with one another. Some of it is just normal human social behavior. Some of it is purposely instigated by the cult leader. The leader triangulates members against each other to keep them in conflict for two reasons. One is to keep them so distracted and exhausted that it wears them down. The other is to be the arbitrator and savior. In NXIVM Raniere had everyone at each other's throats and if begged for help, would come to arbitrate. It just so happens that many of those at each other's throats were also his lovers. He instigated jealousy on purpose. On a smaller scale, you can see triangulation used by a malignant narcissist. They turn those around them against each other. Especially against their target. On a societal scale, entire political groups are riled up against each other. They are so busy fighting that it camouflages what the leader or leaders are doing. As Sun Tzu said, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” I would add: “Let them fight each other”
Number 21 - MYSTICAL SCIENCE. Another important hallmark of a cult is a spiritual or scientific understanding that the leader says unifies the TRUE nature of life and reality. The true cause and effect of the universe.
Maybe it’s:
Your thoughts create all reality,
You are the only true architect of your life,
The frequency you are vibrating at attracts similar frequencies and experiences,
It’s your karma,
Every opinion you have is a projection,
You are causing your misfortune and illness,
You can live forever if you overcome your humanity and increase your vibration.
Fragments of these theories may have some truth in them but they get applied to all of reality. Now let me clarify… this kind of thinking exists in all of society. Having these ideas as theories or musings is not the issue. It’s when they get enforced as the one and only grand unified theory of existence that the trouble starts. These dogmatic precepts direct the thinking, and behavior of the followers, sometimes causing them to make poor and often detrimental decisions. They become less reality-based and more delusional. There is often a simpler explanation for why things are happening, but the follower, now isolated from reality, clings to the mystical ideology as though their life depends on it. This worldview, that they believe in, often excuses the behavior of the cult leader. When things don’t make sense, the leader can refer to the mystical science as the explanation. The leader might insist that they have a higher perspective and can see things the followers can’t see or understand. It can easily become a form of institutionalized gaslighting. When friends and family challenge the follower on their alleged science, they can be very dogmatic and assume an air of superiority. They are beyond these logical questions, they think. Their loved ones might be tempted to try and out-logic them - but it’s important to remember, the cult member is not using logic. They are using emotions. The mystical science they are holding onto gives them relief from some kind of pain, confusion, or insecurity. The only person who benefits from this is the cult leader.
Number 22 - DARVO. Jennifer Freyd, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon coined the term D.A.R.V.O. It stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim, and Offender. This is an unspoken modus operandi in cults. It’s a large-scale tactic employed by narcissists. The leader and the ideology can never be at fault - it must be the follower that is at fault. Any concern or objection the follower has is turned around on them. THEY are actually to blame. Sometimes this is overt sometimes covert. What do I mean by that? Well, sometimes this reversal is baked into the teachings. In NXIVM and some other High Control groups, the concept of being AT CAUSE was introduced. You were taught that the more you could recognize your responsibility in all things the more power you had. So the question would always be asked… how did you cause this thing you are unhappy with? Being AT CAUSE was recognizing how you caused and created all things in your life. If you had a concern or were upset you were prompted to find your responsibility in it. Maybe it was your thoughts, maybe it was your energy, maybe it was your doubt or disbelief, or maybe you were harboring resentments against the leader, which you were told was your own projection. This ideology is so convenient because it holds the abusive cult leader and system completely blameless. In a cult, every ‘problem’ is turned against the individual. Sometimes with syrupy sweetness sometimes with passive-aggressive rage. Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim, and Offender.
Number 23 - GASLIGHTING. It’s related to DARVO but requires its own mention. Gaslighting is not simply someone disagreeing with you. This word gets thrown around a lot. When someone responds to you with a contrary viewpoint that you don’t like - that is NOT gaslighting. Gaslighting is a deliberate attempt to convince you that your perception of reality is in error. Word of the year for 2022 according to Merriam-Webster - they define it as “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.” You’ve likely heard stories of arguments where the target of a narcissist tries to address something that actually did happen and the narcissist insists it never did. It goes something like this:
“You were talking to your ex again weren't you?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“I can see the phone call log right here on your phone!”
“First of all, why are you looking at my phone and secondly, why do you always get unstable when I talk to other people?”
“So you did call her!”
“I didn’t! I think you need help, you’re beginning to imagine things.”
Ironically, the narcissist is icy calm and the target is getting visibly upset. This kind of dynamic is designed to have the target question their reality. Maybe they are wrong. Maybe they did imagine it? He seems so sure of himself after all. It often ends in reactive abuse. In a cult, the followers may see things that are obviously problematic or immoral. The leader will then explain to them they did not see what they thought they saw. They are examining the event through their own filters and immature projections. Eventually, the followers no longer trust their own judgment and instincts. As George Orwell wrote in 1984: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” A perfect example of this in general society is when you watch a government spokesperson for an authoritarian leader flat-out lie about what is going on. They will use doublespeak to confuse the press and the audience. If they are doing heinous and evil things they might describe it as forwarding the cause of freedom and democracy. The recipient of this narrative might know it's a lie but if that lie is repeated again and again, they begin to lose touch with actual reality.
Number 24 - INFORMATION CONTROL. For the cult to maintain its control over everyone, information must be managed very carefully. There’s an official narrative that is put out by the leadership (which is often a complete lie) about what is going on inside the cult and in the outside world. Think of it as state or corporate-controlled media. You are only fed information that benefits those seeking control. This narrative is used to maintain the Us vs Them mentality, but also to keep the followers away from any sources of information that would be a threat to the cult leaders’ control. There is approved information that everyone is fed 24/7 and then… the forbidden other. All other sources are to be feared, excluded, hated, ridiculed, and forbidden. If you dare bring up other sources of information you will experience consequences. You are forbidden to speak freely and openly about any concerns you have with the practices of the leader or organization - in other words, CENSORSHIP. Now here's an interesting thing. The people who are on board with the narrative do not see any censorship - they are clueless. Because they believe the narrative so ardently, they never bump up against its boundaries. They have no idea why the fringe lunatics are causing trouble and being so dramatic. In NXIVM, Raniere would talk about us being in a war against hate. A war against people who were promoting hate. It turns out those people promoting so-called hate were trying to warn us about him. Later, us whistleblowers would become characterized as promoting hate. Just because the leader is labeling people with some terrible and scary word, doesn't mean those are actually bad people. They may be trying to help you. It may be the very opposite of what you are being told to believe. It’s important to know that if you bring something up in a group and there is a violent reaction to your thoughts or statements, you’re probably in a cult. You might believe you are free, but you are not. Now, in order for this all to work, all other sources that oppose the official narrative have to be poisoned. This brings us to the final characteristic of a cult.
Number 25 - THE SMEAR CAMPAIGN. In the cycle of Narcissistic Abuse one of the last stages is the smear campaign. This is a way for the narcissist to avoid scrutiny and accountability for the shit their doing. Similarly, this happens in cults at all scales. The leader has some activity they have done or are doing that they want kept secret - usually because if the followers found out, they would be shocked and likely leave or even destroy the cult. In order for the leader to maintain control and worship, he or she has to make sure the followers stay in the dark. It can be hard to control the flow of all dangerous information but what they can do is manage the image of the whistleblowers sharing that information. How do they do that? By poisoning the image of these truth speakers so no-one trusts them. Building on the Us vs Them idea, the whistleblower has to be turned into a THEM. A dangerous, unstable, hateful, bigoted, irresponsible, anti-humanitarian LIAR. Whatever label is applied to them has to be something truly upsetting or scary to the followers. Something that goes against their most cherished values. They are so caught up in their own hatred of this person and what they supposedly stand for, they do not bother to question if what they are being told is true. Now, any information that comes from this source is ignored, hated, and ridiculed. It’s usually vitally important information but they are too far gone. They are an unconscious mob. No matter how much you try to convince them you are not this person, they cannot take it in. You are now Satan and their abusive cult leader - is God.
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So, these are my 25 characteristics of a cult. I could honestly do an entire episode on each of these points, but I was aiming for brevity. If any of this is familiar to you in the group you are currently involved in, it’s worth examining. If you feel resistant to examining it, that's also worth examining. If you find yourself thinking, “This is such a limited perspective, he obviously does not understand enlightenment and the spiritual journey”… that thought you’re having is REALLY worth looking into. Insisting you have a god-like superiority over us mere mortals, might be a belief system worth investigating. It’s really quite wonderful down here with us mortals.
If you suspect someone is in a cult, do yourself a favor. Do not tell them they are in a cult. That word has been poisoned by the leader. At most, you might want to call it a High Control Group or High Demand Group. (Read the first article in the show notes.) It was the first article my wife had me read to help deprogram me.
In terms of your friends and family stuck in a cult. Do not fight them. Do not ridicule them. They are in the equivalent of an authoritarian regime and they have completely bought into the ideology. Do not give them ammunition to believe you are the enemy by attacking them. Stay interested in their perspective, and above all, be loving and kind. One day they might compare what they are TOLD is love (in the cult) to the ACTUAL love you are giving them and realize they prefer your unconditional kindness to the fear and punishment they are experiencing.
As I mentioned earlier, I’m going to be doing a course discussing the psychology involved in each of these tactics, and how to resist and break free from them. If that is something you’d be interested in, sign up on my mailing list on my website and you’ll be the first to know when it goes live.
I hope this has been helpful. Please, share it with as many people as you can who might want to gain an understanding of how all of this works. And don’t forget to head over to my Patreon account: patreon.com/MarkVicente.
And - above all - stay curious!
The first article I read that helped with my deprogramming.
http://www.dreichel.com/Checklist_of_Cult_Characte.htm
Visit my Patreon Page: patreon.com/markvicente
ICSA
Janja Lalich
https://www.cultresearch.org/help/characteristics-associated-with-cults/#
Rick Ross
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/27/cults-definition-religion
Steve Hassan
BITE Behavior Information Thought Emotional CONTROL
https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/
Consent Awareness Network
I Got Out