How Is a Cult Defined and How Can People Get Out?

People often say that that members who vote party X or party Y are inside a cult. I think we can all agree that whatever political affiliation, cults are never a good idea. They might even play a role in the ever increasing polarization that we see happening. So out of curiosity, I opened the book Cults Inside Out (2014) by Rick Alan Ross to learn how a cult is defined and how people can get out.

What is a Cult?

According to Robert Jay Lifton in his paper Cult Formation (1981), destructive cults have three primary characteristics:

a charismatic leader who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose their power;

a process I call coercive persuasion or thought reform;

economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie.

Note here that "leader" can also mean "a set of leaders" if you consider totalism or totalitarianism as another variant of a cult. That this is a fair comparison to make is due to Lifton also having written a book called Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'brainwashing' in China (1989), which suggests that there is a lot of overlap between cults and totalitarian regimes.

Rick Alan Ross describe the basis for thought reform as follows, based on Ofshe's Coercive Persuasion and Attitude Change four key factors of coercive persuasion:

The reliance on intense interpersonal and psychological attack to destabilize an individual sense of self to promote compliance.

The use of an organized peer group.

Applying interpersonal pressure to promote conformity.

The manipulation of the totality of the person's social environment to stabilize behavior once modified.

These psychological themes can be expanded with definitions from Lifton's book. Ideological totalism, like in 1950s China and in cults, satisfy multiple of the following eight psychological themes. The more an environment satisfies these themes, the more it resembles ideological totalism. Also, the more these devices are used to change people, the more it resembles thought reform or "brainwashing".

Milieu Control

The totalist environment aims to control not only the individuals communication with the outside, but also the communication within themselves. Participants may be unsure about who is telling what to whom, but that information will probably be leaked to authorities is known. Communicating the wrong information can lead to severe consequences such as being ostracized or, in the case of totalism, being imprisoned. To engineer the human soul, it must first the brought under observational control.

People inside a strict mulieu control often feel a resentful awareness that attempting to learn new information and self-expression are being hindered.

Mystical Manipulation

In the next step, every possible device at the milieu's command is used to provoke specific behavior. This leads to "planned spontaneity", which by members of the group might be seen as logical or even near-mystical.

This mystique in religious groups can be seen as having a "higher purpose" or in non-religious groups as having perceived some "imminent law of social development". The Party, the Government, or the Organization are the "agents" chosen to deliver the higher purpose.

In many cases, the individual realizes that the forces are too big to counter and takes on, what Lipton calls, the psychology of the pawn. This state is where the psychological energies are spent riding the wave even though this leads to endless rounds of betrayals and self-betrayals.

The Demand for Purity

The experienced world is sharply divided into absolute good and absolute evil. All impure (evil) parts of the system must be found and eliminated. Interestingly enough, this pure system is an unattainable goal so the system will continuously be reforming.

Due to the milieu being impure, individuals are often expected to expect humiliation and ostracism when not meeting prevailing standards. One way for an individual to relieve this constant feeling of guilt and shame is to denounce outside influences. This guilt and shame will often turn into "projection" where this enormous emotional bondage is being projected into mass hatreds, purges of heretics, and holy wars.

The Cult of Confession

The demand for absolute purity causes an obsession with confessions. It is an act of symbolic self-surrender and can be a relief of suppressed guilt feelings. This turns nasty when the, as happened to Camus' character, the person who confesses the most is also the most allowed to judge others.

The "Sacred Science"

The totalist milieu maintains a basic dogma that provides an ultimate vision for the ordering of human existence. Someone who criticizes this dogma is considered "unscientific". Instead, the absolute science of ideas exists and is very closely to being figured out. This absolute science becomes so strong that it present yet another pressure towards avoiding.

Loading the Language

A totalist environment consist of brief, highly reductive phrases. Usually easily remembered and expressed. These become the basis for any analysis. For example, the phrase "bourgeois mentality" is used when someone in China would partake in individual expression or search for alternative ideas. Totalist language, is centered on all-encompassing jargon that is abstract and relentlessly judging.

Although this kind of language exist in any culture or organization, the importance is much more extreme in totalism. The effect of the language can be summed up in one word: constriction. Due to being linguistically deprived, the capacity for thinking and feeling are (immensely) narrowed.

Doctrine over Person

The most extreme aspect is that the doctrine now is more important than the human experience. For instance, the doctrine affects the person's own interpretation of experience. Historical events are retrospectively altered, or even rewritten, to make them consistent with the doctrine. Even more, humans are expected to conform to the doctrine. Underlying is the assumption that the doctrine is more true than human experience.

The Dispensing of Existence

People "outside" the system are considered non-people. The in-group participates in, what the Greeks called, hubris, namely extreme overconfidence and complacency or arrogance. This is necessary because there is only one valid way of being thus making other ways invalid or false.

The totalist environment promotes a fear of extinction or annihilation. And only belonging inside the group can save oneself.

Next to these eight themes, psychologist Margaret Singer has provided distinctions between education, advertising, propaganda, indoctrination, and thought reform in Cults in Our Midst. These distinctions can be helpful in distinguishing education (the least extreme form) from thought reform (the most extreme form):

Does the focus for the body of knowledge lie in finding of various fields or on finding knowledge to change people without their knowledge?
Is there much ability to change, or does the organization remain fairly rigid in thought?
Does persuasion encourage logical thinking or a more hierarchical stance?
Is the relationship time limited (as in education) or aiming to retain people forever?
Is there respect for differences in the educational setting or no respect for differences?

How Can People Get Out of a Cult?

Rich Alan Ross in his book describes a voluntary "deprogramming" program that he himself ran multiple times. He did this on request from families who suspected that one of their family members became part of a cult. First and foremost, he emphasizes that deprogramming should be completely voluntarily. In the 1970s, it was still allowed to effectively kidnap someone to deprogram them from a cult, but this is nowadays illegal in the US (and I suspect most other Western countries).

Next he describes conducting an intervention. In hundreds of interventions that he conducted, in most of the cases people voluntarily decided to leave the cult after the intervention. Only a few people decided to continue with the cult.

The process is an information-driving educational dialogue. At some point, the hope of the dialogue is, as Ted Patrick puts it, to stimulate the mind "to start working again".

The first part of the intervention is with the family to prepare for the intervention and to set clear rules. For example, that the discussion should try to remain calm and also the participants are asked to collect evidence to bring to the intervention.

The second part of the intervention is to have meaningful access, meaning that communication with the family still occurs. Next, the average intervention takes multiple days. On the first day, someone involved in a cult is asked to come visit the house and is then asked to stay in the house because the family is concerned and would like the person involved in the cult to stay for a few days. Usually, multiple family members are around as is Rick Alan Ross, who introduces himself as a professional consultant. At this point, the family states that they would like some further understanding about the group that the person is involved in. (I personally find this a bit questionable because according to the book the aim is clearly to deprogram someone, but on the other hand I guess some subtle communication is necessary to get anywhere.) According to Ross, there should be no deception about why everyone has assembled. Also it should be agreed with everyone that no one will be disrespectful or rude and that "there is no reason to be afraid of asking questions."

Next, the family and the cult member will try to talk about the situation. This will often feel overwhelming for the cult member and may require many breaks. Typically, an intervention may take two to three days, and shouldn't take more than four or five. The more time there is to share information, the greater is the chance of success.

The intervention should not providing too much information too quickly at the risk over overwhelming the cult member. Also should it provide sufficient information to "keep him or her interested and engaged." It is also important to be receptive of particular questions or interests of the cult member.

During the first day of the intervention it is also important for people to turn off cell phones and disconnect from the internet. Rick Alan Ross also asks the cult member to avoid calls or other communication with the cult during the intervention period.

After having this all set up, we come to the core of the intervention which consists of four main topics to be discussed:

What are the defining elements of a destructive cult?

How do destructive cults use identifiable persuasion techniques to gain undue influence over their members?

What is the history of the particular group or leader who has drawn concern?

What is the family's immediate and potential concerns regarding involvement with the group or situation that has led to the intervention?

At the end of the intervention, there should be a review of what has been learned. This would focus on these four topics. Finally, there is no need for the cult-involved person to make a decision right then and there. In some cases people decided to join the cult again but then later still decided to leave it due to things that he or she had learned during the intervention. The person can be asked whether to for a few more days stay away from the cult in order to have time to process things.