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MOTIVATIONS FOR JOINING

People who join cults do so for two principal reasons: (1) They want to lead a meaningful, spiritual life and (2) they want to feel protected, cared for, and guided by someone who knows what to do in a confusing world. The first motive is conscious and laudable; the second is unconscious or not recognized for what it is. Therein lies the problem: The wish to have a perfect parent and a loving; supportive group lies concealed in the psyche of even the most outwardly independent person. When the opportunity arises to gratify that wish, it powerfully influences judgment and perception and paves the way for exploitation by a cult.

CULT BEHAVIOR IN NORMAL SOCIETY

Just as it is important to have a means of judging a spiritual teacher, it also is important for the ex-cult member and the therapist to be able to answer the more general question: "Is this group a cult?" Patients need to be able to answer that question to avoid making the same mistake again, and therapists are likely to be asked that question by a worried parent or spouse. Usually, the group in question has obvious cult trappings, but society abounds with groups and organizations that appear normal but have the potential for cultlike behavior: large corporations, political groups, professional organizations, government bodies, and established religions. These sectors of normal society seldom are thought to share characteristics with The People's Temple or the less dramatic groups such as the Moonies and the Krishna devotees collecting money in airports, however, careful study of cults reveals four basic cult behaviors that occur to varying degrees in almost all groups, including those that do not have a strange appearance or engage in bizarre behavior. Identifying these basic behaviors permits one to replace the question, "Is this group a cult?" with the more practical one, "To what extent is cult behavior present?" The latter question is more useful because in the field of the transpersonal, as elsewhere, there is a continuum of groups ranging from the most benign and least cultlike to the most malignant and destructive.

THE FOUR BASIC CULT BEHAVIORS

#1: Compliance With the Group
Everybody is concerned with how he or she is viewed by the people whose opinions matter to, us:, our "reference group." No matter how, outwardly independent and nonconformist we may be, there is, usually a, group of people who share our values and whose approval we want. Membership, in this group is signaled by conformity in dress, behavior, and speech. ...

The essential aim … is to attain security through and have its members protected by one individual. It assumes that this is why the group has met. The members act as if they know nothing, as if they are inadequate and immature creatures. Their behavior implies that the leader, by contrast, is omnipotent and omniscient.

#2: Dependence on a Leader
Leaders draw a power from their followers’ wish for an ideal parent, a wish that is latent in all adults no matter what kind of parent they had. Although cult leaders may be charismatic, they need not be as long as they are believed by the group members to possess superior powers and secrets. Cult leaders are authoritarian, encouraging dependence and discouraging autonomy. Obedience and loyalty are rewarded, and critical thinking is punished. Furthermore, to enhance dependency on the leader, pair bonding is discouraged. The leader must come first; family and lovers come last. The disruption of intimate relationships is accomplished by a variety of means: enforced chastity, separation of parents from children, arranged marriages, long separations, promiscuity, or sexual relations with the leader. All these aspects are counter to healthy leadership, which fosters growth, independence, and mature relationships and has as its aim that the followers will eventually achieve an eye-level relationship with the leader.

#3: Dissent
Dissent threatens the group fantasy that the members are being protected and rewarded by a perfect, enlightened leader who can do no wrong. The security provided by that fantasy is the basic attraction that keeps members in the cult despite highly questionable actions by the leader. Questioning the fantasy threatens that security, and for this reason, active dissent is seldom encouraged. To the contrary, dissenters are often declared to be in the grip of Satan. Sometimes they are scapegoated, and hidden, unconscious anger toward the leader is released against the dissenter. Almost all groups derive security from their shared beliefs and readily regard dissenters as irritations, to be gotten rid of. Nevertheless, the mark of a healthy group is a tolerance for dissent and a recognition of its vital role in keeping the group sane. Paranoia develops and grandiosity flourishes when dissent is eliminated and a group isolates itself from outside influence. As recent cult disasters have shown us, grandiose and paranoid cult leaders often self-destruct, taking their group with them.

#4: Devaluing the Outsider
What good is being in a group if membership does not convey some special advantage? In spiritual groups, the members are likely to believe that they have the inside track to enlightenment, to being "saved," or to finding God because of the special sanctity and, spiritual power of the leader. It follows that they must be superior to people outside the group: It is they, the converts, who have the leader's blessing and approval. Devaluation can be detected in the pity or “compassion” they may feel for those outside. This devaluation becomes most marked in the case of someone who elects to leave the group and is thereby considered “lost,” if not damned. The more such devaluation takes place, and the more the group separates itself from the outside world, the greater the danger of cult pathology.

Devaluing of the outsider is part and parcel of everyday life. Depending on which group we designate as the outsider, our scorn may be directed at “liberals,” “Republicans,” “blacks,” “Jews,” “yuppies,” or “welfare bums”: however the outsider is designated. Such disidentification can authorize unethical, mean, and destructive behavior against the outsider, behavior that otherwise would cause guilt for violating ethical norms.

Devaluing the outsider reassures the insider that he or she is good, special, and deserving, unlike the outsider. Such a belief is a distortion of reality; if one considers the different circumstances of each person’s development and life context, one is hard put to judge another person to be intrinsically inferior to oneself. Certainly, actions can be judged, but human beings are one species, at eye level with each other.

Source: Treating Former Members of Cults - Arthur J. Deikman


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