How Religious Cults Work

Cults, wonderful on the outside but on the inside are very manipulating. Cult leaders are desperate to trick you into joining. They are after your obedience, your time and your money.Cults use sophisticated mind control and recruitment techniques that have been refined over time.

Beware of thinking that you are immune from cult involvement, the cults have millions of members around the world who once thought they were immune, and still don’t know they are in a cult!

This article exposes the secret techniques cults will use to try and trick and control you.

What is a Cult?

The modern definition of a mind control cult is any group which employs mind control and deceptive recruiting techniques. In other words cults trick people into joining and coerce them into staying. This is the definition that most people would agree with. Except the cults themselves of course!

How they work

Cults that use a belief system as their base are very common. Their belief system could be standard Christianity, Hinduism, Islam or any other of the world religions, or they may have invented their own belief system. What makes them a cult is the fact that they use mind control, not what they believe.

Mind Control

Deception – A cult needs to recruit and operate using deception. Why?
Because if people knew their true practices and beliefs beforehand then they would not join. A cult needs to hide the truth from you until they think you are ready to accept it.  KEY POINT  – NO LEGITIMATE GROUP NEEDS TO LIE OR MISLEAD YOU ABOUT WHAT THEY PRACTICE AND BELIEVE.

Exclusiveness – A normal religious organisation would not have any trouble with you moving to another similar organisation as long as you stayed in that same religion. Because it is the belief system that matters, not membership in an organisation. For example if you were a Christian then you could move from one church to another and still be a Christian.

However cult leaders will tell you can only be “saved” (or can only be successful) in their organisation alone. No other organisation has the truth, all others miss the mark. So it is not the belief system that decides your future, but it the belief system AND your membership with that particular group.

Fact – Any group that says that you must BELONG to the organisation to be saved is almost certainly a cult.

SADLY, The cult leaders need to make you believe that there is no where else you can go and still be saved, and if you ever leave the “one true church” then you are going to hell. This is a fear based control mechanism designed to keep you in the cult. It also gives the cult leaders tremendous power over you. If you really believe that leaving the group equals leaving God (or means you are leaving your only chance to succeed in life), then you will obey the cult leaders even when you disagree with them instead of risking being kicked out of the group. Exclusivism is used as a threat, it controls your behavior through fear.

Fear and Intimidation – Cult leadership is feared. To disagree with leadership is the same as disagreeing with God. The cult leaders will claim to have direct authority from God to control almost all aspects of your life. If the cult is not a religious group then questioning the leaders or program will still be seen as a sign of rebellion and stupidity.

• Guilt – will be used to control you.
• Character Assassination – is used to help create the guilt in you.

Fact – Cult members are very fearful of disobeying or disagreeing in any way of their leadership.  Healthy organisations are not fearful of debating openly.

Love bombing and instant relationships – Cults know that if they can control your relationships then they can control you. Whether we like it or not we are all profoundly affected by those around us. When you first go to a cult they will practice “love bombing”, where they arrange instant friends for you. It will seem wonderful, how could such a loving group be wrong! But you soon learn that if you ever disagree with them, or ever leave the cult then you will lose all your new “friends”. This unspoken threat influences your actions in the cult. Things that normally would have made you complain will pass by silently because you don’t want to be ostracised. Like in an unhealthy relationship love is turned on and off to control.

Cults also try to cut you off from your friends and family because they hate others being able to influence you. A mind control cult will seek to manoeuvre your life so as to maximise your contact with cult members and minimise your contact with people outside the group, especially those who oppose your involvement.  Beware of instant friendships.   Beware if a group tells you who you can or cannot see or be friends with.

Time Control – Mind control cults keep their members so busy with meetings and activities that they become too busy and too tired to think about their involvement. Time control also helps the cult keep their members immersed in the manufactured cult environment, it also helps keep cult members away from friends and family.

Together all the above techniques = MIND CONTROL

Pressure Selling

One of the most common forms of commercial cults is the pressure selling organisation. These groups ostensibly make money by selling goods via their sales organisation, but in reality they make their money by selling goods and motivational materials to their sales organisation. Using mind control they seek to enlarge and maintain their sales force, and hence their profits.

Examples…

• Merchandise
• Torah Codes
• Seminars
• Retreats
• Business Opportunities
• eCommerce adventure
• Books, Tapes, Videos, Leaflets, Products.
• Asking for Tithes

THIS IS WHAT THEY DO

The following techniques are actively used by all Religious cults

Repetitive Recitation – Makes responses automatic, and is most closely affiliated with what has been termed “brainwashing”. It reduces the natural  Inquisitiveness of a person to an automatic homogenous “parrot” of the ideas that are taught in this repetitive way. Often, victims are told to meditate on an idea, or become part of a group that uses peer pressure to enforce the activity.

Scripture Twisting – Appeals to the need for rational thinking, and depends on a pre-existing confidence in Scriptures, or a possible confidence in Scriptures. Misinterpretation, discouraging question asking, and extreme authority are often utilised in conjunction with Scripture twisting.

Emotional Incentive – Social needs are met only when the “proper” response is given. Often coupled with peer pressure, once a target is drawn into the group, conformity to the group’s ideas and “rules” is enforced by providing and/or withholding emotional needs.

Emotional Cleansing – breaking down the individuality of a person encourages replacement of the individual with the ideas and thoughts of another. Related to ideas of self-esteem, emotional teardown consists of a leader or group emphasizing negative traits in an individual. Through this process, individuals with low self-esteem, or have a low self-confidence, will strive to satisfy the “new” attitudes of the group, thereby reducing the group’s concentration on the individual’s “negative” traits. Often, emotional cleansing is utilised when an individual can be isolated from society, family, and friends. (i.e. retreats, camps, “training” schools, sanctuarys)

Spiritual Incentive – Secret or mystic “truths” are revealed only when the “proper” response is given. Often, secret oaths and horrifying penalties for the disclosure of these “secrets” are utilised, although some groups are known to reveal “inner” secrets only to those that have proven loyalty to the group. A defined hierarchy of authority is usually the case with these kinds of groups, with the revelation of “secrets” used as a method of enforcing conformity.

Spiritual Cleansing – Current belief system is challenged and ridiculed. A new, or modified belief system is proposed to replace it. The technique plays on emotional and spiritual needs. In pseudo-Christian cults, scripture twisting is common.

Social Incentive – Social needs are met when the “proper” response is given. An individual who does not conform to the group is shunned, harassed, or persecuted.

Peer Pressure – Needs are met when the expected “proper” response is given. Acceptance of an individual into a group is dependent on conformity to group ideals and actions. This is often tied to any and all of the incentive methods.

Graduated Indoctrination – The actual basis, or belief system, is introduced to the target so slowly, the victim assimilates information without checking it against previous information. Most commonly, truthful principles are utilised initially, then the true beliefs and policies of the group are intermingled. An individual may subjectively perceive the new ideas of the group as being very consistent with his/her own belief system, even though those ideas were originally perceived as being contrary to that individual.

Cult Signs 

• Single charismatic leader.
• People always seeming constantly happy and enthusiastic. Especially if you discover that they have been told to act that way for the potential new recruits.
• Instant friends.
• If you are told who you can or cannot talk to or associate with.
• They hide what they teach.
• Say they are the only true group, or the best so why go anywhere else.
• Hyped meetings, get you to meetings rather than share with you.
• Experiential rather than logical.
• Asking for money for the next level.

They do not allow their teachings or practices to be questioned. If you question, then automatically the group assumes that something is wrong with you. It can never be the case that anything is wrong with the group’s practices or teachings. Often they will try to shut you down by accusing you of having a “bad attitude”.

They will push you to obey by using guilt. They will demand complete “submission” to the group, its leaders and its teachings. They will do this by making you feel absolutely rotten about yourself. They will ridicule you and attack any weakness you might have (or invent weaknesses you might have if they can’t find any). Their goal is to break your will by causing you mental anguish.

People of all ages are influenced and many are professionals. It appears that anyone can be recruited. For rather than joining a cult they are actively recruited. No one wakes up in the morning and says “its about time I got involved in a cult” and goes out looking for one. Instead they become unwitting victims of deception and subtle techniques of psychological manipulation.

There is help.   You do not need to go through this alone.

False Prophets Exposed, 2015