Quick thoughts on modern cults

This post is adapted from a reblog I posted on Tumblr about this chatter on the concept of modern cults…

As someone who grew up in a high control environment that was not a cult but shared HUGE overlapping themes with cults, and who has, for about 15 years, read, studied, and obsessed over cult dynamics and how cults operate (and their use of manipulation and social relationships) I think about cult shit a lot. In fact, I’ve written recently about one of the biggest, baddest cults in history. Cults fascinate me and one of the biggest pieces of misinformation about them I see floating out there is that there is a “kind of person” who would join a cult and a “kind of person” who wouldn’t.

Despite the evidence to the contrary, you may be thinking still “I’m not one of those WEAK MINDED FOOLS who would join a cult” let me remind you that there’s no one type of person who joins cults. But lots of people who join cults do so when their life is in some kind of crisis and they are extremely vulnerable, seeking a place to belong or escape.

Right now, I have a place to belong and I’m happy and I am hyper vigilant about high control environments and I probably wouldn’t join a cult…but if I had recently lost my job? My partner passed away? If a handful of my friends who function as family left Texas? If my house burned down? If I began struggling with addiction? If I became very ill? Who knows what I would do if just the wrong kind of predatory group bumped into my life at just the wrong time?

All cults start with some level of reasonable introduction. The whole boiling frog metaphor…none of us are as bulletproof to social manipulation and control as we may wish we are. Our circumstances impact us greatly.

I very much think we are not only going to but are already seeing modern cults in a big way. And it’s interesting how many of them are led by women. Gwen Shamblin Lara. Teal Swan. Mother God.