How my own research fueled my therapy...

Up until age 23 I thought I knew the answers to life’s secrets. I thought I was better than everyone else. I used to pity those who weren’t privy to this holy information I had, or grew up in the way that I did. Now, I look at those who did not experience what I did with jealousy, with remorse for how I used to look at them, and with pleading to accept me for the person I was.

When I was 23 years old my family left what we didn’t know was a cult until much later. It is 4 years later and we are still making peace with what transpired; Each one in their own way. I found myself getting a Masters degree in Sociology and when I was assigned to write a seminar paper on the concept of Madness, Disorders, and Therapy, I decided to focus on the traumatic experience that I personally encountered, so that maybe I would find this a therapeutic process. And so, I am sharing this here today because I think that it could also be helpful to others.

The goal of my research was to understand what causes a cult member to “flip the switch to reality”, “turn the light on to the truth”, “wake up from their slumber” that allows them to leave.

I’m sure those who are reading this know that the process of “flipping the switch” and gaining the courage to get out is a long and difficult process that can continue way past their physical exit. I wanted to understand, based on research, the mental process that allows this exit to happen in the first place.

Cult membership is an all encompassing experience which is crippling, controlling, and strips you of your self-identity. So the act of leaving takes extreme courage and strength. Cults use a very effective method of mind control that allows them to recruit, maintain, and control members. It is an environment that is extremely difficult to almost impossible to get out of. So what causes or helps their process of disillusionment? Are there factors that set these people apart? How are these people capable of leaving while others remain? Which experiences lead these members to question? How do they justify it? Is it an individual experience or does it require partnership with others to succeed?

I went about my quest to find my answers. I started by researching in various books and articles. I picked up ideas from texts such as the famous Dr. Janya Lalich’s “Cults in Our Midst” and Dr. Steven Hassan’s “Combating Cult Mind Control”, as well as mainstream videos and stories such as Jubilee’s “Do All Ex-cult Members Think the Same”. Although, I would say that the background on which I built my conclusions were the first-hand interviews I did with relatives and friends who were able to escape, or “flipped the switch” to truth and found the courage to leave.

The findings from the texts, from the interviews, from my own experience brought it down to 4 factors that allow this mental process - of allowing oneself to break free from a coercive environment - to happen:

1. Most people originally join cults as an escape from something. Most of the time it is from a life of pain and suffering (based on what they personally define that as). When the cult itself, their escape, turns into that same reality, as many of them do, it again triggers a natural response within the person to escape.

2. Family and the people you truly trust can affect the way you think. The more people you have inside whom you trust, and the closer you are to your family, the more your actions depend on theirs. That means that if they express doubts or decide to leave, it awakens your awareness to the truth that much more.

3. Those who maintain their personal values, rather than the collective one that you are conditioned to believe, have a higher chance of leaving. When the cult hurts a personal value, you are more likely to leave. For example, if a cult member’s value is “family first” before they joined and during their membership, any damage to their family triggers a response.

4. The more they know the better. There is a lot of secrecy within cults, especially about wrongdoings on behalf of cult leaders or members. The more a person knows about the harmful things they do to others, the more likely they are to doubt the cult.

5. If leadership actions are inconsistent with what the ideal symbol they are supposed to represent.

Based on these findings I’d like to suggest 4 practical ways that anyone can attempt to save a friend from a cult.

1. If you yourself have been in the same cult, share your negative experiences, doubts, and situations with others. Telling them the truth may not immediately make them see it but it will increase their chances of leaving in the long-run.

2. Maintain family connections. Many families have been broken up because of a member’s involvement in a cult. Keeping in contact is key to making a person feel like they have a lifeline, that they are supported in other ways.

3. Make it clear how the cult is hurting the person’s personal values

4. Highlight leadership behavioral flaws

I hope that these findings are helpful to those who find themselves wishing that their friends left. Those who are trying to understand their own experiences. Or those who are interested in this psychological phenomenon that is hard to explain unless you’ve been through it yourself.

~Miriam