During this section, I will be digging into the structure of a cult and how the whole thing needs a community to continue or else the cult itself will collapse. Whilst researching into different cults and their religions, I noticed that the whole cult community is basically a pyramid scheme to scam them into joining the community in order to be housed, help they religion and beliefs spread as well as join a group of other like-minded people.
Aside from how the community works similar to a business scam, I will also look into the structure of how cults keep members, how people might escape the system and other aspects of the structure of this weird community.
Pyramid Schemes: A great scam for the top to profit from…
Having studied business for three years, I have gained the sense to sniff out pyramid schemes like a blood hound. Pyramid scheme is a quick way to gain profit if you’re at the top of the pyramid, however you must reply on people below you to influence others in joining the scheme and paying for their membership as well as selling a poor product/service.
Pyramid Schemes shown above, do not always last long due to profit becoming hard to come by at times with reviews of the product that is being sold going viral and so members leave the scheme with debt or get caught due to the scheme being illegal. But how goes the whole thing form? May pyramid schemes form with the person at the top having a “great idea/product” which they sell at a high price whilst the product is poorly manufactured. These people gain other peoples interests, mostly family and friends as the person has gained their trust and if the idea is sold so well, family members and friends would buy into the illusion and after selling these products to others, the main leader of the operation would start demanding the profit from their friends and family members. This would then trickle down the ladder or pyramid to the point where people will refuse to join in this elaborate scheme and leave causing the whole thing to crash as it all relies on the people above getting paid.
Aside from the Pyramid Scheme, another more simpler scheme called The Eight Ball has also come out and could be used to also describe another way of recruiting cults. Each member must recruit two people as it goes own the ladder. Unlike the Pyramid Scheme where members could be in contact with 1 to 22 if not more people; this could cause members to loose contact with people or trace of who owes who money. The Eight Ball scheme works better due to the close knit connection between the leader and their two members.
Cults that mainly involve religion, will require new members to give all they personal belongings to them in order to join at times. All members give into this will after they have been manipulated into believing the cult is for a good cause for their religious beliefs. Handing all personal items to such a group is deadly as getting out of the group with nothing to use or go back to seals the members fate in most cases.
But what do cults do with these items? I’ve asked myself this question whilst watching documentaries on the subject as well as reading different materials to see if any hint towards this question would appear yet I cannot find any yet I do have my own theory. My theory is that the items given to the cult are either used to sell on and gain extra money for the cult to use to buy materials or use for their own purposes. Aside from items and money, properties like houses might be used to house current members or new ones. Items and their value to the cult will always depend on what the cult requires for the community they have built to continue to strive and grow or for the selfish use of those above every common member of the community.
The Cult Community: Positions within the group…
Just as I have stated above, a cult works like a pyramid scheme in which people have their positions and can at times move up the ladder yet this is rare unless the person had qualities that the cult can use for their own agenda.
Examples of famous cult leaders.
Leaders
When watching documentaries, reading journals and articles from the inside and outside of cults, I have come to realise that each and every cult at times has some similarities. Those being that leaders are at a mature age or a little bit older and are commonly white men; this does change depending on where the cult is originally from but mostly men leading cults. This does not mean women cannot lead cults themselves but a quick google does mainly bring up male cult leaders.
Aside from the leaders gender and age, most cult leaders have a background in religion; either working inside a church being a priest or being a member within the community. Having this knowledge of a religion is the key thing to any want-to-be religious cult leader. Reading transcripts and understanding the books around the religion and how people interpreted has been covered by popular cultists to the point where they will use religious text against those who start asking too many questions, leave the cult or go against any rules and regulations stated within the community. Control is just as key as the context, tone and language used when addressing members and new followers.
Women
Seen as second class citizens due to sexist beliefs within the group, women are just seen as items to control, have sex with and increase the population of the community. With these prejudices, women at times are forced to marry men within any choice or opinion on the matter. Certain groups will have multiple wives in which will have to share their husband and do what he requests as well as clean the property that they inhabit along with caring for their multiple children.
With the view of a woman as an item, certain cults use them as such. When people are asked to leave the community and at times their families, certain cults will allow payments for them to be kept within the community. Aside from money being the main payment, certain cults will allow the men to give up wives and children to either a high-ranking member or the cult leader.
Cults will fall on hard times when memberships drop to a low and will use the proposition of either luring men into the group by prostituting wives, daughters and other women or being promised a wife that could become their own property once they commit to the community.
The way cults view women in this day and age is disgusting and even makes my skin crawl to the thought of being given away to a man I do not know and at most would view me as an object even though I as a person, have a lot to offer and should be allowed to express my opinion and choose my decisions in life.
Men
Men are seen as the first class citizens unless their skin is of a different colour to the group. Aside from colour and race being a difference in the groups class ranking, men are normally sent off to build structures for homes, huts or any other building required for the use of the cult as well as manual labour. Aside from the manual jobs given to the men of the cult, men are paired up with either a woman or women by the leader or higher members of the cult. If certain men are extremely friendly or in the pockets of higher cultists then they will most likely be able to slip a word in and hopefully get the women they want the most.
Not all of the men within the cultist community are such evil beings. Many men just want to live their lives within one person and have a family within a group they believe is positive and supportive with one another. Many men themselves do leave the cult when their wives are taken from them for the leaders or higher members or even take their whole family and leave such negative experiences behind for the sake of their children and wife’s health.
Children
Reproduction and gaining population is a main aim for any cult to keep profit and members high. However this causes many issues especially for the children’s heath, mental and physically. Many children within cults grow up with little to no education and around the ages of seven to nine, they are required to work within in the cult. The boys are sent off to learn manual labour whilst the girls are left to stay at home and help they mothers and fellow women cult members out. At times the girls do learn how to sew in order to make clothing for the cult when required.
With little to no educational aspects in their youth, children that leave the cult at an older age suffer incredibly when it comes to gaining jobs and socialising. Education is key to a child’s growth not only within themselves but also expanding their knowledge and skills for adult life. Aside from that, the children at times do not have many friends and are contained within their families within certain cults.
Certain cults limit the time for children to go out and play or believe that the action of playing is wasting time in which the children could be doing work. Again this limits the child’s growth as a person due to the fact that we explore and learn from playing. The idea of us as humans learning and growing through the action of play is explored within the book Homo Ludens by Dutch historian and cultural theorist, Johan Huizinga.
Outsiders
There are two different types of outsides; one of them being a possibility of new members and the other being previous members or people against the cult/religion itself.
Ex-members of cults that have survived sexual assault, mental and physical damage from living within a cult community are labelled as “sinners” or other devil or anti-religious statement that labels them in order for the whole community to turn on them. Leaving a cult itself, is a difficult task and can be extremely difficult for those who live within a close knit community where everyone is in everyone’s business.
Nonbelievers of the cults religion are portrayed as “sinners” and should be avoided at all costs due to many of them “promoting” false information about the group. Those who are nonbelievers are us (those that are in our normal society) and can clearly see when we’re being brainwashed into joining a cult.
Possible members are normally people who have a troubled past, fresh out of education (mostly university/college), or have similar ideas/religious beliefs.
Positions Within the Community
No matter what gender or age of the members, the leader will always assign certain people to closest to them. These people are mainly close friends or family members with the same idealistic aims as the leader. The main leaders of the group will be men (unless the cult is solely for women and children) who will be of that selected skin colour. Normally the leaders for a majority of cults are white men.
Building the Cult’s Community: Gaining members and building structures to house members…
Gaining Members
To gain new members, different cults have gone down different routes, many of which are false promises or promises of gaining multiple wives at your disposal which causes harm to children and women within the group.
Cults most of the time, start off in a normal setting within a religion or group where the potential leader will go to the extreme to socialise with everyone to understand each individual to the point where they will know what tactics to use to gain their trust and start to manipulate them. After a time period (a few years at least), the potential leader will at that time have gained some attention, trust and possibly a high position with that religion or group. When establishing this position, the potential leader will determine when the right time it is to take the people they have under their thumb away from the main group and lead them off into the distance well away from society.
For the potential leader at this point, they have become the leader of that cult. To keep people within their grip, they must soon establish who will aid them and become their second and third in commend. This will probably happen just before the cult leader decides to migrate the group away. For the group leader to pick people for these positions, they too must be under total control of the leader and must be extremely close and share the same views and visions as the leader. At most, people that fit into these positions are extremely close friends and family members.
Gaining Members: The Psychology behind the Brainwash
At the beginning, it is key for the potential leader to follow these types of psychology manipulation techniques in order to start the ball rolling whilst they gain the trust of their fellow religious/group members. To keep things simple, I’ve found two sources that state there is 4 to 8 key elements in making sure that their members are under complete control of the potential cult leaders thumb. I’ve decided to go with the 4 key elements as they are the main elements in order to obtain peoples control and trust.
- Deception: This is one of the first steps that any cult leader or one in power must to do reel the person into the cult. The first deception will be the leader. The leader must make themselves look like they’re making sacrifices for the greater good of the group, along with making them look like a caring and trusting person who will do anything for anyone. Once this deception is in place, the leader will offer something that that person specifically requires (shelter, women, family, a source to fix their problems) which the person will take and believe. This offer in itself will deceive the person into becoming a member due to an offer they could not refuse at the time. After time, the member will partly receive the offer but under terms that by then getting out would not be an option or a hard one to get out of.
- Isolation: Isolating the member is key to having full control. The cult leader will and must keep members with family and friends on the outside away from the member. To do this the cult leader must either get the member to cut all ties with those on the outside, or not to believe or accept what the family is telling them. Keeping members like this away from their family members allows the cult to become the only source of information for the member.
- Dependence: The cult must make sure that the member is dependent on them but without their knowledge. For cults to do this, leaders or those with high positions must subtly criticise the members for thinking for themselves and not about the group (independent thinking), criticising the person for having their own identity, making decision for themselves, and slowly installing fear into a person to the point where we get to stage four.
- Dread: The member will by now hate to think about the consequences of leaving the group, or doing anything wrong within the group that will cause themselves or others (like their children or partners) harm. Leaving the cult or going against any orders becomes a dreadful thought making the member under full control of the cult.
This steps must be continuously repeating in order to keep people inline and within the cult. The more times a leader or someone with power does this, the easier it gets for people like them to control others to the point they do it naturally without knowing.
Information around this topic can be found with the following sources along with more detailed descriptions:
Exploring the Cult Culture Link
Aside from this 4 key elements, I also found a TED Talk that explains how and why cults rewire the human brain to keep members interested.
Diane Benscoter informs the audience how not only did she join a cult (the Moonies) and escaped the cults clutches after five years, but how she was manipulated into joining the cult. Diane explains that cult leaders create a Memetic viral infection by creating a idea and passing it onto one person who then passes it onto another and another etc (to explain this further, I’ve added a video below explaining it clearly). She then goes onto talking about how she was told that all her problems would be taken care by God but only if she prays and gives herself up to that God. This then circulates continuously to the point where those who are leaders do not have to keep saying this to the person as it has become ingrained in them. This then creates a “us and them” mentality which adds to the viral Memetic infection creating separation from people in and outside of cults. This effects those with families on the outside of the cult trying to rip their child or family member out of the cult which at times never works due to the viral infection being so far drilled into their minds that leaving is not an option.
The video above defines and discusses the Viral Memetic Infection, who’s most venerable and how cults use it. This video is extremely informative and even uses extremist groups and cults as examples along with how to prevent people from catching the Viral Memetic Infection. To do this, tactics used in the Viral Memetic Infection has and is always being exposed by ex-cult members and psychologists in order to keep people safe from drifting into dangerous cults and possibly harming themselves or ending their lives.
Building the home hub
With many cults moving out into the middle of large acres of land, structures either have to have the ability to move or materials are bought to build such structures. Many cults go with the easy way out to save profit and buy mobile homes which can be toed by anything with a four wheel drive. Even with such mobile homes, structures are built for extend on such properties and even to build additions to the land.
Tiny Houses are a great example of how cults could build their own shelters or movable houses if they do not have enough money to purchase a new vehicle in order to move around until the cult has finally settled. Many cults like the FLDS church send children and some adults off to build structures similar to the one in the video above, if not larger in order to cut down the cost of the labour.
Aside from building their own homes like the girls in the video about Tiny Houses, I found many people living in vehicles that had been modified to move around as well as live out of. This is another way a cult could move around undetected and live within an area for a while. This vehicle was originally a school bus yet was adapted to a families requirements. Now projects like this are more costly but are achievable. The bus itself can be made to fit up to six people (a great example of this would be this video here of a differently family but with a similar bus).
Aside from movable homes for those cults with less profit and income, other cults that have a larger population and income can afford buildings to be built in their honour like the FLDS building above. The FLDS has multiple buildings like a supermarket and others that are all surrounded by a wall and can be locked off from the outside world. This is to not only keep those they want in but also to keep those in the outside world out. This sort of building is to the extreme. Many other cults like the Children of God had normal homes and flats found any and everywhere within our society. Buildings like this are down to what the cult can afford and if the leaders and main supreme leader are willing to spend an immense amount of money on such properties.
Bland 