Mindbend: Delving Deep into the Ominous World of Shadowy and Bizarre Cults

On By Sherna BhumgaraIn Crime, Discussion Board, Human attributes; attitudes & behaviour, Non-Fiction & True Events, Vices

The enticement, baiting and lure of the ominous cult culture is holding our entire world to ransom. As each day goes by, more and more cults are emerging, in increasing numbers, and it is becoming a huge and serious problem for law enforcement agencies to get the requisite concrete proof of criminal activities within these cloistered, sequestered groups of people. This is largely because these cults prey upon unsuspecting, naïve people who join the group willingly, thinking that the group will provide them a much-needed meaning and purpose in their lives. In any case, if the cult is ever threatened, the cult leader denies everything. It becomes a case of ‘his word against ours.’It’s a very difficult situation and a grave prediscament- to say the least.

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A Cult is defined as follows:

  • The Merriam Webster dictionary defines a cult as being a body of adherents who espouse great (& unquestioning) devotion to a person, an idea, a movement or to a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious. For e.g. the satanic cult, the voodoo cult, etc. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cult)

How do Cults Operate?

Source: https://study.com/learn/lesson/cult-characteristics-types-behavior.html#:~:text=While%20some%20cults%20have%20religious,with%20most%20true%20religious%20groups.

While some cults have religious beliefs, not all of them do. Cults often isolate their members from friends and family on the outside, punish doubts or questions, and require inordinate sacrifices and money from followers, who are closely controlled in a way that is out of step with most true religious groups.

What is a Cult?

What is a cult? A cult is a group with a particular and often dangerously fanatical ideology that has certain characteristics. The term ‘cult’ comes from the Latin cultus, meaning ‘worship. This is reasonable: a cult must have a leader who is either worshipped or greatly revered by the cult’s followers. A specific cult definition can be hard to pin down because in order to be a cult, a group must have a number of attributes. People often disagree about what makes a cult, meaning that the definition is fluid. This is true especially in the context of new religious movements: some of these movements have been called cults, while some people have argued against this for a variety of reasons. It is easier, generally, to get to grips with the characteristics of cults than to create a single, all-encompassing definition.

Characteristics of a Cult

Experts have determined a long list of characteristics of a cult to help people determine whether they or someone they know is part of a cult religious practice or political group. The following cult criteria and cult behaviours are the best way to determine what makes a cult:

  • A charismatic leader: Cults always follow a charismatic leader, living or dead, whose teachings are considered of the highest importance. This leader may be considered a genius or may be considered a religious figure like a messiah or prophet.
  • Ideological purity: Members are strongly discouraged from questioning the cult’s doctrine and any doubts are met with shame or punishment.
  • Conformity and control: Cult leaders often exercise an extreme degree of control over members’ lives, including dictating what they can wear and eat and what kinds of relationships they can have. Conformity is also enforced by group members who police one another.
  • Mind-altering practices: Sleep deprivation, chanting, meditation, and drugs are often used to break down individuals’ defences and make them more susceptible to cult ideology.
  • Isolation and love-bombing: It is common for people in cults to be encouraged to cut contact with outsiders, including close family members. Within the cult, new members are often subjected to love-bombing, a practice where new initiates are showered with love and praise to bring them deeper into the cult and foster a sense of belonging.
  • Us-vs-them mentality: Cult members are often encouraged to see the cult as superior to life on the outside and to feel that those outside the cult lack understanding or insight.
  • Apocalyptic thinking: Preparation for a supposed apocalypse or cataclysmic event is a major characteristic of many cults, especially cult religions.
  • Time and energy: Followers are expected to dedicate huge amounts of time and energy (and often money) to the cult to the exclusion of their own lives, interests, jobs, and families.

One thing to keep in mind when looking through the traits of a cult is that a cult and a religious movement are not the same thing. Most religious movements do not isolate their practitioners from family, engage in love-bombing, encourage illegal and dangerous behaviours, or attempt to strongly control their members. Some cults position themselves as religious groups, but the distinction is important.

How Do Cults Start?

It can be challenging to understand how cults start and how individuals join cults, especially when the ideology of a cult often looks nonsensical for those on the outside. Cults are started by charismatic individuals who are skilled at getting people to listen to them. They may have unusual ideas about reality, or they may even invent an ideology to promote.

Cult leaders typically target extroverted people who are generally successful but are currently feeling dissatisfied with their lives and feel that something is missing. These people are already looking for something, so they are primed for a cult to show up and give them what they think they need. As cults grow, they recruit more and more members, but only a few hundred at most are usually the hardcore believers.

Types of Cults

There are several different types of cults that function in slightly different ways. Despite these differences, cults can always be dangerous and harmful to the people participating in them and, in some cases, to people outside of them. 

Religious Cults

Religious cults claim to be religious movements and are predicated on religious doctrine. They sometimes use existing religious doctrines and sometimes create entirely new ones. 

  • Scientology: Not all sources agree that scientology is a cult, but those who allege that it is a cult (including ex-members) cite financial pressure on members, personal information gathering and blackmail, and instances of abuse.
  • Heaven’s Gate: Heaven’s Gate was a cult in America in the 1970s based on religious beliefs about UFOs. The cult’s leader, Marshall Applewhite, led 39 believers to mass suicide in 1997.
  • Love Has Won: Recent cult news has included Love Has Won, a cult whose members allegedly mummified and displayed the remains of their leader, known as Mother God, upon her death.

 

Political Cults

Political cults typically form based on a particular political belief or stance and can be very dangerous. Some political cults also include religious and apocalyptic elements to their thinking. They are not restricted to a particular political bent. Examples include:

  • The Family: In the 1960s, Charles Manson started a cult based on the idea that there was an impending race war coming that would end with white people ruling the world. To hasten this event, Manson convinced some of his followers to commit several murders.
  • QAnon: QAnon is an ongoing online cult with a number of beliefs that do not align with reality, including, in many cases, that the earth is flat. QAnon and its followers have been linked to the January 6, 2021 Capitol Riot.
  • Jonestown: While the People’s Temple was primarily a religious cult, it also included Marxist and socialist principles. Followers of leader Jim Jones were coerced into committing mass suicide in 1978, resulting in over 900 deaths.

There is a degree of overlap between religious and political cults, as both of them are often concerned with an impending apocalypse, war, or grand societal change.

 

Self-Improvement Cults

Self-improvement cults offer prospective members a way to change their lives for the better and become their best selves. While this might be a great idea in theory, the reality of these cults can be severely damaging for members:

  • NXIVM: NXIVM is a cult that recently got a lot of media attention when its leader, Keith Raniere, was sentenced to 120 years in prison. The cult included sex trafficking practices and human branding, all under the guise of self-help.
  • The Landmark Forum: Whether or not the Landmark Forum is a cult has been a matter of debate for a long time. It promises self-improvement and has many members, but many ex-members have described their experiences as abusive, isolating, and cult-like.

There are many other self-help cults, but it can be more difficult to identify them than it is with religious and political cults because they are less controversial, and it may take longer for their impacts to become clear.

Anti-Cult Movements

Anti-cult movements are organizations or groups that are concerned about the impact of cults and who seek to do the following:

  • Research organizations to verify whether they are cults
  • Publicize and expose potential cults for their dangerous behaviours
  • Provide support for ex-cult members

Ex-cult members are often helped by anti-cult movements through what is called ‘deprogramming,’ which seeks to undo the brainwashing that members of cults may have undergone. These movements can also provide social and financial support to those who are just coming back to life outside of cults.

Government Policies and Action

Different national and local governments have created a variety of policies to reduce the danger of cults, particularly in the decades since the Jonestown massacre. Generally speaking, cults are prohibited, and leaders prosecuted when it is proven that crimes are being committed, but governments do lack power in cases of cults that may be manipulative and damaging but are not necessarily committing crimes. The United States, along with many other countries, has established that the government does have the right to intervene in an alleged cult’s activities to protect its citizens.

Summary

A cult is a dangerous organization that manipulates and often harms its members. It is a group of people excessively dedicated to a person or to a belief system that can be but is not necessarily religious in nature. Characteristics of cults include:

  • Charismatic leaders
  • Illegal and dangerous behaviours
  • Unquestioning faith
  • Isolation and abuse of members

Some cults can be extraordinarily destructive, like the Manson Family, whose members were persuaded to commit murders. It is important to keep in mind that cult followings and cult classics are harmless expressions of interest in media and should not be confused with actual cults.

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Now, a note from this author:

I never thought, years ago, that someday, I would need to state how much our world has become an unhealthy place to inhabit – our Earth has become totally unsafe, and even a dangerous place to live in. Ceaseless war, unnecessary and random acts of violence, and heinous crimes aside, what is as serious and more worrisome, is the silent and overt manipulation, brainwashing and mind-control games that people in general, and cults, in particular, play on the minds of its unsuspecting followers.

Let us not forget the thought-kidnapping techniques of conmen and charlatans either.

Let us delve deep into the psychology behind such dubious behaviour. What follows is my perspective of the subject at hand, especially that of religious cults. I do not know if you will agree with my interpretation here, or not.

It starts as follows:

The Cult Leader: In general, such individuals are ‘the failures’ and ‘non-entities’ of the world – they suffer from a deeply embedded inferiority complex but are narcissistic enough to imagine that the world, at large, needs to notice them for their so-called brilliance and ‘enlightenment.’ They crave attention at all costs – whether it is approval or not. Such a person is a charismatic, charming, self-appointed leader proclaiming either a dubious ideology or a personal interpretation of religion, that is highly suspicious and doubtful, at its best. In the case of a religious cult, they draw upon their own spurious interpretations of the Holy Bible and claim to be “The Son of God” and the “Resurrected Messiah” who has taken the sins of the world on his own shoulders and proclaims that absolute, unquestioning adherence to his philosophy and devious methods will lead his sinning followers to ultimate “salvation.” This false sense of grandeur has made many such unscrupulous people proclaim to their followers that they are “the Reborn Son of God.”

They are akin to skulking hyenas – essentially dangerous predators who are constantly on the prowl – looking toward preying upon weak-minded, vulnerable people, who essentially become the obedient and subservient followers of the cult leader. The latter is so brainwashed and so thoroughly manipulated that they have blind faith in their leader, his philosophies, and his unconventional practices.

Such a self-appointed leader is normally a male, whose basic arrogance and self-absorption, makes him see himself as the essence of a prized Casanova who women are just waiting to fawn over. The leader is such a smooth and glib talker, basically a compelling orator – his adherents will do anything – and everything, whether criminal or not – to gain approval and favour of the leader. When this leader speaks, he drives his audience to a frenzy that reaches a fever pitch. In such a way, the leader induces a ‘non-conscience’ and a certain kind of frenzied madness in his unquestioning followers.

The cult leader is essentially, nothing short of a cowardly bully – a weak-minded person who espouses confidence in himself when an unflinching group of ‘disciples’ follow him blindly in his unconscionable acts. He fears being left alone because without his followers, he is worth nothing.

The cult leader is basically an ulterior-motivated thrill-seeker, possessing a devious kind of intelligence. He uses the cult philosophy to promote unreasonable and unacceptable means to indulge in his innermost, disgusting, and secret fantasies. They will promote ‘free sex’ for example, as a means of learning ‘intimately’ about the innermost workings of ‘love.’ This includes the ‘grateful’ act of having illicit sexual relations, multiple times with the leader himself, since he is believed to be the Resurrected Messiah, reborn to save the world from its sins. The women, essentially prepubescent minors, virgins, and teenage college students, come willingly and with great excitement to the leader because he loves them ‘a million times more than God Himself.’

The leader invariably states that ‘the Lord has asked him to show his followers, the meaning of love and sexual pleasure, as a means of achieving salvation’ by becoming the ‘bride’ of the Son of God (Jesus) Himself. While the sexual act might be consensual initially, it escalates quickly into desperately weird and kinky stuff, including group sex orgies and deviant, unnatural sex such as sodomy. By the time, the adolescent follower realises that this act is a brazen sexual assault and rape, it is too late for any real remedy.

A cult leader has a veritable harem of ‘brides’ – he “calls for them” whenever (and however many times) it suits his purpose of satisfying his deviant, sexual urges. The ‘bride’ is expected to be always willing, respectful, soft-spoken, and subservient to the leader – she is expected to ‘pray and to be sweet,’ regardless of the provocation and the criminal acts performed on her – against fervent appeals of her disapproval, anguish, weeping and cries of pain “to stop” to the leader. He will not stop doing whatever he wishes to do with her till he has fully satisfied his perverted desires. Essentially, the leader uses his ‘bride’ like a piece of trash and discards the woman once he has had his fill of her. This shocking behaviour implies that the cult leader is essentially a serial rapist – a psychopath who lacks a conscience of what constitutes Right and Wrong.

If both husband and wife are cult followers, the cult leader demands that the husband no longer has the right to have sex with his wife- it is only The Son of God who has that exclusive privilege. The husband is expected to bow to the leader’s will and not to show any resistance whatsoever.

The cult leader encourages wild and raucous behaviour- such as loud chanting leading to a frenzied trance, as if possessed by the Devil, and noisy sex that disturbs the peace of the community that the cult initially formed part of before absolute isolation from the world.

The leader demands unfaltering respect and undying loyalty of the cult members. The cult leader might cross all limits of reasonable behaviour – he might go so far as to demand that a group member shoots and kill another person, just to prove his faithfulness to his Master. The adherent is so blinded and so brainwashed that he will not hesitate to commit murder, in the name of God.

Certain satanic and voodoo cults demand the spilling of blood – whether animal or human – to appease restless spirits. The person is so brainwashed and mind altered that he/she is even willing to be killed, in the name of sacrifice.

If ever the cult is in a position of serious threat from the police & the press and media, the cult leader expects his followers to be able to use all kinds of sophisticated arms and weapons to defend their leader and the cause of the cult. If a sudden ambush is made by law enforcement agencies on the cult headquarters, the leader and his followers commit mass suicide. Nobody puts up any resistance of any sort, nor are there any rigorous protests. All of them willingly lay down their lives, in the Name of God and the cult. How scary and horrifying it is to be so mind altered!

The Cult Leader’s Followers: The cult’s self-appointed leader is like a skulking vulture – a highly dangerous predator – stalking his prey, unseen from the shadows. Once he has gathered around 100 die-hard ‘disciples,’ he uses these initial followers to bring in fresh, new recruits, for the illicit fulfilment of his promiscuous sexual indulgences, and as a means of increasing the group’s followers. The larger the group’s following, the stronger, more powerful, and more volatile, it becomes. These ‘recruiters’ have been victims themselves, but they do it to earn money (like a regular job), to gain favour with the cult leader and to garner positions of importance within the cult. When the new ‘bride’ is left sexually assaulted, humiliated, defiled, and broken after the unlawful, brutal rape that she suffers at the hands of the leader, she appeals fervently for help and for a reasonable explanation from her ‘recruiter,’ the latter just smiles and nods her head, as if to say, “don’t worry, it’s all good. This normal.” In this way, the victims become the perpetrators. It is a vicious cycle of which there is no end in sight.

The leader looks for the vulnerabilities and weakness of his followers and actively exploits these weaknesses. The follower might be a rich and successful person, but more likely than not, this individual is weak-minded, naïve, trusting and innocent. He/she lacks the maturity and presence of mind to look through the dishonest antics of conmen and charlatans – since that is what the leader really is. They might be ‘damaged’ people, who come from broken homes and who have been ‘ragged’ and bullied, all their lives. They often lack self-respect and self-confidence because according to their twisted thinking, they are worthy of nothing more in life. These followers have been looked down upon all their lives – they feel inferior, and the cult leader subtly manipulates the situation, so that he/she is made to feel important and worthy. Such people are looking for a deeper meaning to their lives and the cult promises to do just that – till their blinded eyes are opened to the contrary.

The cult uses elements of Social Psychology in its brainwashing tactics, such as Group Psychology, to garner total submission and absolute subservience of its members- in the sense that if everyone in the group is seen as acting and behaving in a certain way, then its participants view such actions as being normal and acceptable – even though, in reality, such actions may be totally unreasonable and unacceptable, as per the rules and the norms of a regulated society. This is another form of highly effective brainwashing.

A time comes, when “the Stockholm Syndrome” comes into play – it is a psychological concept where the cult member (essentially a hostage) forms a contradictory and conciliatory relationship with his captor (the cult leader.) It is the formation of a psychological alliance or bond between the hostage and the captor wherein the hostage starts to like, understand and sympathise with his/her captor.

Isolation: The cult cloisters and sequesters itself in isolated areas of the country, hiding away from the prying and questioning eyes of the world. The leader purposely chooses such a desolate, remote spot, (for example, by creating a small township in a secluded compound hidden beneath towering mountains), to establish his ‘church,’ to promote the “Us versus Them” ideology, since the cult is deemed as being vastly superior to the external world, and because people outside of the cult lack the necessary understanding and insight into the activities of the group.

These thought-kidnapped followers literally leave their families, one fine day, and vanish from the face of the earth, without a word of explanation to anyone, and without any forethought as to the consequences of their drastic, thoughtless actions. Family members are unaware of what the true scenario is, and spend years together worrying about the well-being of their loved ones. They do not even know whether their son/daughter is alive or dead – we cannot even imagine the anguish and desperation of such families.

For the follower, in the meanwhile, the cult becomes their haven, their life and their diligence to their assigned work and chores, becomes their job – their way of earning a living. This isolation is ideal for thorough manipulation and brainwashing activities – who else is there to dispute it? Nobody else, for sure.

If a cult member tries to leave the group, he must find a way to escape unseen and unheard, because the cult house is like the four, towering walls of a high-security prison. Once a cult member has joined the cult, it becomes virtually impossible for him/her to leave it – it is like belonging inextricably to a band of mobsters, gangsters, and drug lords. If he/she so much as tries to escape, severe punishment follows, not only to the cult member himself/herself, but to his/her family members as well – the latter are threatened, stalked, and mercilessly physically assaulted too. The cult leader has informers everywhere. The cult is a dangerous trap from which escape is rarely heard of. Even if someone does manage to free himself/herself from the clutches of the cult, he/she finds it very difficult to get back to normal life. This factor of closed-in isolation affects them both emotionally and mentally. They are broken by the abuse that they have undergone and forever ridden by guilt for becoming a willing victim-turned-perpetrator of abuse – physical, sexual, mental, and emotional abuse, amounting to torture.

Extortion and Blackmail: The cult leader is essentially a conman and a charlatan – a mediocre, average person hiding behind the self-created persona of superiority and greatness. He is a fraud, pretending to be someone of unequivocal importance and enlightenment – which he is not. He will portray himself to be very religious-minded – he will claim to know the “ins and outs” of the Holy Bible, for example, because he has read it at least 2000 times and continues to do so diligently.

He will find some pretext or another for his followers to invest billions of dollars to further the cause of the cult. This form of extortion from unsuspecting followers is used indiscriminately by the cult leader himself to increase his own wealth – but always proclaiming that it is for the benefit and furtherance of the group. Riches and wealth mean power and this money is used to bribe influential people, thereby gaining their favour, in case of an arrest. If the matter ever reaches a court of law, this extorted money will be used by the unscrupulous cult leader to buy the favour of the Judge and Jury. Such is the power of his ill-gotten gains!

Apocalyptic Thinking: The cult leader might use his ‘extraordinary prowess of heightened enlightenment’, to prophesise a cataclysmic event that will lead to the End of the World. He induces such fear of this impending catastrophe in his followers that they are ready to do anything for him. He will claim to have seen a Vision from the Lord Himself. He may encourage his ‘disciples’ to build a series of earthquake-proof and bomb-proof underground bunkers, as a means of protection from certain doom – after all, he claims being the ultimate reborn Saviour whose sole purpose is in saving an elected-few followers from certain death. His followers are so brainwashed that they believe it all – so gullible are they!

Investment of Large Amounts of Time and Energy: Cult followers have no life outside of the cult, and no livelihood except for what little money they might earn from attending to certain daily chores and duties assigned to them, within the cult itself. The cult becomes their life and the work that they do for the cult becomes their job. They may lack the necessary life-skills and knowledge to pursue a regular job outside of the cult. In this way, they are perpetually beholden to the cult and its leader. Followers who dare to escape from the cult become total strangers to their own family members and friends because they have been out of contact, for years together. These brainwashed people realise too late that they invested an inordinate amount of their time, energy, and efforts to a thankless task of little (or no) value or meaning.

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What else is left for me to say? Just the following fact – the world is full of Evil people – it is full of conmen and charlatans, manipulative and devious people, looking towards the satisfaction of their own dubious ulterior motives and hidden agenda. Such wicked people are a dime a dozen – a ruthless and unscrupulous lot, who will stoop to any lengths to get what they want. Since their hidden desires are almost always unreasonable and unacceptable, as per societal norms, they will stop at nothing – they will use fair or crooked means – to satisfy their unconscionable urges. In India, it is invariably the so-called ‘holy babas and sadhus’ who are the slinking, sexual predators, preying upon unsuspecting weak-minded and vulnerable people. Very few of them are religious-minded or holy. While all of them may not be so, the fact remains that most of such people are that way.

Promiscuity and indiscriminate sex, in the name of “free love” has given rise to the occurrence of several dangerous and contagious sexually transmitted diseases, such as AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhoea, etc. It has led to a higher incidence of oral and anal cancer – deadly malignancies that were not so evident in the past, as they are today. It has caused undue pain and suffering that could easily be avoided.

It is such brainwashing and thought-kidnapping activities by unscrupulous religious heads that has given rise to a steep number of terrorists and suicide-bombers in the world – all in the Name of God. It’s supposed to be a Holy War, but it is really a Holy Betrayal of basic trust and faith.

It is no great surprise then, that we live in a such a chaotic world of utter pandemonium and bedlam, then, isn’t it? Will it ever improve? I wonder…….

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P.S. The purpose of this post is to expose abhorrent and unconscionable acts. Knowledge is Power. It is far easier to say NO, rather than be entrapped forever. Do not forget it. 

We have been gifted with a ‘gut instinct’ for a reason – learn to listen to your innermost voice and learn to trust it. This gut instinct is very rarely wrong – if ever. If something (or someone) seems to be too good to be true, then it is highly likely that it is indeed the case. This implies that further thought and investigation is definitely needed before absolute committal. This is very important – once entrapped, there is no looking back. Regret is too late and escape – if at all – becomes nearly impossible. Remember my advice well. Do not forget it.

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