The negative and potentially fatal effects of belonging to a cult are well documented. There are many accounts written by those who escaped from the clutches of a cult. Within a cult subordination to another’s will can result in handing over total life control, including financial assets, essentially being a slave, to whom anything might happen, including sexual abuse, and at worst being forced into mass suicide.
History is littered with individuals who claimed some sort of ‘divine’ right or ‘divine’ spirit to coerce others into providing them with wealth and power, from Indian gurus influencing people in the music industry to American and other evangelists who offer not just ‘afterlife’ but material wealth in the here and now. Just send us twenty dollars or more…
Among Wikipedia definitions of cults is a comparison to ‘miniature totalitarian political systems’. A 2021 piece in Psychology Today says ‘no one joins a cult; they are recruited by systematic social influence processes’ and ‘destructive individuals and cults use deception and undue influence to make people dependent and obedient’. Also, ‘cult leaders are typically malignant narcissists and want people who will be obedient to them’. On vulnerability it says, ‘no one joins a cult voluntarily; they are recruited into it. There is lack of informed consent. Everyone has vulnerabilities’.
The best way to highlight the dangers of cults is to shine a light on them. In late July/early August the BBC ran a two-part documentary on the Jesus Army – Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army. They also ran a piece related to the documentary entitled Investigating one of the UK’s most abusive cults. The effect that membership can have upon an individual’s mental health is highlighted by the comment of an ex-member of the cult: ‘One contributor, Nathan, “despite struggling to come to terms with the fact he was groomed and sexually assaulted, admitted he would likely return to the Jesus Army if it reopened”’. A documented aspect of cults is the sexual abuse that takes place within them: ‘About one in six was sexually abused, according to a review of the damages claims of some 600 individuals’.
Around the same time The Guardian ran an article called The rise and fall of the British cult that hid in plain sight. It’s a long piece by an ex-member of the Jesus Army, a woman who, when quite young, was forced into the Jesus Army by her ‘normal’ family joining it. She echoes Nathan’s comment by explaining that the reason people stay in cults is due to ‘the thought of leaving a domestic relationship, with the additional anguish of abandoning one’s family, friends, money, job, and support system, along with the inherent threat of going to hell’.
The only ‘hell’ that exists is the current social system which encourages predation on people who are alienated from their fellow human beings because capitalism encourages the pursuit of wealth and power by whatever means possible.
DC
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