How to Tell You're in a Cult

By Ben Gibran

Cults are potentially harmful because they use psychological techniques to exert a high degree of control over members. Involvement in a cult can disrupt a member's education, career, finances, social life, or family ties. Some cults have persuaded members to cause harm or break the law. Knowledge of cult recruitment and indoctrination methods helps inoculate against their influence. Learn about them in this book, along with warning signs of cult activity, and advice on helping cult members and ex-members. The aim is not to cast judgement on anyone or any group, but to help readers make well-informed decisions for themselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781008938946

Book preview

Author

Introduction

In 1995, followers of a religion called Aum Shinrikyo released poison gas in the Tokyo subway. The attack left 12 dead and 75 critically ill. In 1997, 39 members of an American UFO group called Heaven’s Gate committed mass suicide, believing they would be reincarnated as a higher life-form. In 1978, followers of the People’s Temple gave cyanide poison to their own children, before taking it themselves. 914 people died that day, including 276 children.

These groups were often called ‘cults’ by the media; but cults can take the form of families, schools, teen gangs, political parties, self-help programs, clubs, and even workplaces, if they use the same techniques as Heaven’s Gate and the People’s Temple to change beliefs and motivations.

Cults can be subtle in their indoctrination methods, yet highly effective in controlling members. Most families are classic examples, though largely of the more benign or even beneficial sort. We can’t avoid indoctrinating our children to some extent, but most of us (hopefully) allow them to think for themselves eventually. Cults don’t. They relate to members pretty much the way parents do to their kids, and recruits often end up behaving accordingly.

For too long, cults have been labelled a ‘problem’ only when they turn violent, or severely damage members’ lives. Not that the damage isn’t significant. For every media story about cult violence, there are thousands of unreported victims who sacrifice their time, energy, money, relationships, and even mental health to cults.

The basic problem is that cults often impair