What makes a cult a "cult"? And, given that no one intentionally sets out to hand their freedom and finances over to a toxic sect, how do you lot know when you're in one?

If the latter question just fabricated yous roll your optics, safe in the noesis that cults are merely traps for gullible and weak-minded folks, Steven Hassan would urge yous to reconsider. The mind control skillful is the author of Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults. He's also a one-time member of the Sun Myung Moon'due south Unification Church cult.

"If you retrieve it could never happen to you, then yous're the most vulnerable," Hassan says. "Because nobody'due south impervious."

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Our collective fascination with cults—and what leads people downward the path to zealotry—is reflected in the countless documentaries, Tv serial, books, and podcasts made about them over the years. Pop culture inspired by Charles Manson and his "family" is practically a genre unto itself, from Helter Skelter and One time Upon a Time in Hollywood to Emma Cline'southward fictionalized novel The Girls. While horror films like Midsommar present a stylized, extreme version of what we imagine to be a sect's darkest practices, other real-life groups don't seem sinister at all initially.

The Vow, HBO'southward documentary series well-nigh Keith Raniere's NXVIM grouping, profiles several people who initially thought they were role of a Landmark Forum-esque personal development organization, dedicated to helping people become the best version of themselves. Years later on, they'd realize that NXVIM engaged in much more nefarious practices. Here, Hassan explains the warning signs that y'all or a loved one may vest to a cult, and why we're all more vulnerable than you lot might think.

First, what is a cult, exactly?

That depends on who you enquire, though Merriam Webster defines a cult every bit both the "great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or piece of work" and equally "a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious." While the U.S. keeps no formal log of every alleged cult in the country, upwards to x,000 cults currently exist today, Steve Eichel of the International Cultic Studies Association told CBS.

What really matters, co-ordinate to Hassan, is what differentiates a benign cult from a subversive cult—i.e., the one you actually need to lookout out for. "There are healthy cults, in the sense that yous know what you're getting into," he explains, saying this could utilise to followers of the Grateful Dead, for example. "They don't command who you talk to, and what you read. They answer your questions honestly, and you're free to leave if it doesn't piece of work for you."

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Destructive cults ofttimes don't fit the mutual stereotypes of communes and matching robes. "My feel is they live in their houses and apartments, going to work. Y'all wouldn't fifty-fifty know they're in a cult unless you showtime having a chat with them," he says.

A destructive cult is dishonest from the beginning.

Destructive cults ever lie to new members about their true intentions, according to Hassan, either through outright untruths or withholding and/or distorting vital information so information technology appears more tantalizing at first.

"You lot might think you're getting a free dinner," Hassan says, or, every bit with NXIVM, "you're learning a cocky-aid technique. Y'all don't realize that the goal is to get you lot to sign upward for a calendar week class. Then it's a two-week grade, a six-calendar month course. Then they desire you to divorce your wife, requite over your assets, and work for no money."

Know the warning signs of a cult to watch out for.

While no two cults are exactly alike, there'due south pregnant overlap in the methods they use to burrow into people's lives and become their primary influence. In his BITE Model, Hassan divides an extensive list of those common methods into four major categories. Based in research and theory from leading skilful psychologists and scholars who've studied brainwashing, "Bite" stands for Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotional control.

"With mind command cults, at that place's that claw," Hassan says. "Yous think y'all're going to improve your life, or save children—who wouldn't desire to save the children? And then, there'due south incremental disclosure well-nigh what the grouping is actually about. They but tell you what you think you're ready to swallow. So while you're getting indoctrinated, your critical faculties are getting worn away." That might be through hypnosis, food or slumber deprivation, or forcing them to cut off contact with friends and family unit.

Here's a small sampling of the many practices that are listed under each subcategory; read Hassan's total BITE Model here. Any group member who encourages or enforces these behaviors should raise major ruddy flags.

Beliefs Control

  • A group member dictates where, how, and with whom the member lives and assembly with, or isolates them from others.
  • They regulate your diet through forced fasting.
  • They dispense a person and deprive them of sleep.
  • They practice financial exploitation, manipulation or dependence.
  • They impose rigid rules and regulations.

Data command

  • They do deception (by deliberately withholding or distorting information, and/or lying).
  • They minimize or discourage access to non-cult sources of information (Telly, internet, old members, and and so on).
  • They make extensive utilize of cult-generated information and propaganda (YouTube, newsletters, movies and other media).

Idea command

  • They require members to internalize the group'south doctrine as truth (black-and-white, expert vs evil thinking).
  • They change a person'due south name and identity.
  • They use loaded language and clichés which constrict knowledge, stop critical thoughts, and reduce complexities into platitudinous buzz words.
  • They employ hypnotic techniques to modify mental states, undermine critical thinking and age-backslide the member.

Emotional command

  • They manipulate and narrow the range of feelings—some emotions and/or needs are deemed every bit evil, wrong or selfish.
  • They teach emotion-stopping techniques to block feelings of homesickness, anger, doubt.
  • They make the person feel that problems are ever their own error, never the leader's or the group's fault.
  • They instill fright, such as fear of the outside world, enemies, leaving or being shunned by the group.

Do your enquiry.

Exist wary of whatsoever group that can't give you direct answers to questions, telling you you lot'll learn more afterward giving/paying for/achieving something. Behave your own inquiry, and train yourself on how to spot disinformation online.

Hassan points out that any web-savvy organisation can "game" their site, or their multiple sites, so that they alluvion the top page of your Google search results (for case, the site New Cult Awareness Network sounds like a watchdog group, but it's really owned and operated by the Church of Scientology). Call up that Wikipedia is non a reliable source, because interested parties can edit an entry with simulated data.

Ask for the proof.

Another common cult tactic, Hassan says, is to deflect skepticism over their beliefs by placing the burden of proof on others to disprove it. For example, an online merits that top-ranking government officials are really lizard people might ship someone who disagrees on an hours-long Googling journey, all to convince the original poster that at that place's no such matter as lizard people. But the believer is the one who needs to provide proof, instead of sending others into reaction mode.

"If something'southward legitimate, it'll stand upwards to scrutiny," Hassan says. "The burden of proof is on whomever is claiming an expertise, or a new therapy, or a revelation that's going to salve the planet." Once again, cheque the veracity of their sources, and remember that a video or photograph can exist doctored.

Fact-bank check the cult leader.

Non every cult has one leader at the top of the pyramid, says Hassan, but y'all should know the answer to some basic questions well-nigh their background. Do they go past their nascency name? If not, why'd they modify information technology? Are there whatsoever lawsuits? Do they have criminal records? Take they been involved in previous multi-level marketing schemes? Cheque every fact listed in their bio to come across if they are who they say they are.

Hassan recommends that those who suspect their loved 1 is under the influence of a cult leader hire a private investigator to uncover what cyberspace research might miss.

Exist enlightened of your own vulnerability.

Hassan calls heed control a "bi-directional procedure between the predator and the person targeted." What plays on i person's fears and vulnerabilities won't piece of work on someone else with a different life experience—but Hassan insists that something will piece of work on anybody, if they're not properly educated on what to picket for.

"How fast does it take someone to get recruited? Ten seconds, if the correct variables are in place," he says.

Or, it can take years of erosion. "Say you're approached and asked if you desire to accept a free stress test," Hassan says. "You're told, 'You're really smart, and you have and then many gifts. Just at that place'southward a few little areas, and if y'all simply prepare those, your life will be astonishing.' You might go out, but you brand the mistake of giving them your phone number or e-mail address. They pester you for weeks, months, years.

So, perchance y'all break up with your boyfriend, or your friend dies. Six months afterwards, y'all go the electronic mail from them again, saying, 'I can really help you be more successful!'" This tin finally convince someone to endeavour it, when what they should be doing is surrounding themselves with people they trust.

Has someone in your life started spouting theories and beliefs that seem not just absurd, merely also wildly out of character? Hassan says the stress and doubt of our current social, economical, and political situations—stoked by disinformation that's amplified on social media, unchecked—has put all of our defenses downward.

"Betwixt the pandemic and the economic pressures, everyone's super vulnerable," he says. "The only way to protect people is past educating them."

I've long been guilty of thinking I'one thousand too smart to go sucked into a cult, myself. Just after almost an hr of speaking with Hassan, I realized something. If someone promised to protect my family unit and I from the virus, violence, and all of modernistic society'southward looming threats—and all I had to practise was follow their directions—would I maybe, possibly consider attending an affordable data session? I'm not certain, but I am wearing this tinfoil hat just in case.

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