
How Cults Seduce and What Marketing Can Learn From Them [pdf] - jes
http://www.scribd.com/doc/514598/How-Cults-Seduce
======
schoper
I grew up a Jehovah's Witness (now attend a Presbyterian Church), and every
piece of data in this article that touches them is bullshit.

The idea that gold-rimmed glasses are banned is just bizarre. You may see a
different pair of Witnesses come by at different times because that was who
was out that day, not because there is any tactic. There are no "immediate
superiors." You are not disfellowshipped for "questioning an order," the idea
that you even get "orders" is foolish. I suppose that idleness is a sin in
some vague way, but it's not highlighted, and is no more so than for other
Christians (ie., the Protestant work ethic). You can't lie or cheat, but you
can drink. Maybe he's thinking Baptists? Also, you are not allowed to "lie for
the cause." Witnesses don't refuse medical treatments in general, but do
refuse blood transfusions.

Getting every single point wrong takes some special talent. So I assume
everything else in the article about similar (or more cultish groups) is also
wrong, though I am not an expert.

On the other hand, someone should definitely write an article about why the
Apostle Paul was a great startup founder.

~~~
jacoblyles
As an ex-Jehovah's Witness, I agree this article gets a lot of things wrong.
But they also are a crazy cult. I suggest the book "Crisis of Conscience" from
an ex-governing body member if you're interested in JW's seedy history[1].
They started as a numerology-obsessed doomsday cult and evolved from there -
the last time JWs sold off their possessions in anticipation of the end of the
world was 1974, but it wasn't the first time. Today things aren't quite as
bad, but they're still bad:

1) I wasn't allowed to have non-Jehovah's Witness friends or participate in
after-school activities

2) Higher education was discouraged (I understood that it had been prohibited
in earlier years, but they liberalized with the times). The idea is that you
should spend your life serving the lord and not seeking material gain.

3) Reading non-Jehovah's Witness books on religious topics is prohibited. Some
of the Church Services ("meetings") consist of reading verbatim word-for-word
material handed down from the central organization ("the society"). Sermons
("talks") are written by cobbling together recent material put out by the
society.

4) They practice shunning of ex-members (JWs will not talk to an ex-JW. I have
no friends from childhood that will speak to me)

5) They do require a huge time commitment - door-to-door ("field service") at
least once a week and three meetings per week.

6) They believe all other religions are products of the devil, sent to deceive
mankind. Theirs is the only correct one.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/CRISIS-OF-CONSCIENCE-Raymond-
Edition/d...](http://www.amazon.com/CRISIS-OF-CONSCIENCE-Raymond-
Edition/dp/1484821262/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1371362888&sr=8-3&keywords=crisis+of+conscience)

~~~
schoper
That critique is entirely accurate, unlike the article. I second the Crisis of
Conscience recommendation.

------
sivers
A great book about this is “The Culting of Brands” - by Douglas Atkin.

[http://sivers.org/book/CultingOfBrands](http://sivers.org/book/CultingOfBrands)

~~~
jes
On a related note, I have read this book several times:

[http://books.google.com/books/about/Great_Boss_Dead_Boss.htm...](http://books.google.com/books/about/Great_Boss_Dead_Boss.html?id=ADoNAAAACAAJ)

The book, written in a Socratic style, is about tribes and tribal behavior in
businesses.

~~~
wavefunction
Sounds like an amazing premise!

------
dmazin
Not that these people care, but marketers' inability to see how vulgar they
come off is highly entertaining. Who volunteers to be compared to a cult?

~~~
majormajor
The document was _very_ aware of that, and continually said that this was a
short-term strategy of last resort (with the exception being Apple).

~~~
jlgreco
Harley Davidson seems like a better example. Apple fans don't _literally_ form
gangs.

~~~
MartinCron
HD is a great example, as they only barely have to try to make functional
motorcycles and their loyal fans will still keep buying them.

~~~
protomyth
There were a couple of year that buying a functional motorcycle from HD was
difficult. It was more buy the cycle and fix it (or get someone to fix it for
you).

------
acc00
Direct PDF link:
[http://www.mindcontrol101.com/pdfs/How_Cults_Seduce.pdf](http://www.mindcontrol101.com/pdfs/How_Cults_Seduce.pdf)

(Please leave scribd as an option, not as the source).

------
mikestew
I started out reading because I thought it might be interesting. I continued
to read only to see what _else_ they'd get wrong. Of the referenced things of
which I have some knowledge and experience (Harley's and their owners, for
example), they got it fundamentally wrong. I can only assume they were just as
inaccurate with the things I don't know much about.

To back my assertion, let's take Harley as an example. HOGs (which really are
members of Harley's paid Harley Owners Group club, not Hells Angels members)
were scaring off the well-to-do customers? The outlaw biker image is what kept
HD in business. You may be an orthodontist during the week, but you can play
dress-up and be a bad ass biker on the weekend. I don't when the lawyers were
scars to buy a HD, but it hasn't been in the last 35 years that I've been
riding.

It seems like the author started out with a premise, and then either pulled
facts to suit their point, distorted the facts, or just plain made shit up.

------
clueless123
The article implies that Linux had a planned marketing strategy (like a cult)
.. I dont agree with this, I am pretty sure that the growth was quite
disorganized, it just happened to be a better product. Which is a great
parallel with organized religions, where "better products" in their times
raised to be the mainstream.

------
wensing
There is one hallmark of a cult which this document misses: there is no
legitimate reason for leaving a cult.

From the cult member's perspective, this is really a manifestation of the
problem of induction. _Everything_ is going great (the article's "love
bombing" phase) until one day you want to leave or break a rule or both, and
then in an instant everything is upside down and you lose everything.

I guess the business equivalent would be switching costs: leaving the Apple
ecosystem is rough for your iTunes collection. For most people this really
pales in comparison to the losing-all-your-friends pain of leaving a cult, but
maybe not for a hipster.

~~~
tome
That "switching cost" doesn't just apply to cults. I know for sure it applies
to at least certain streams of Islam and Judaism. I wouldn't be surprised (but
don't know for sure) if it applied to certain streams of Christianity too.

You may consider those religious streams cults at your own discretion :)

------
Pitarou
It must be a slow news day on Hacker News.

Poorly researched. 60% garbage. Don't waste your time reading it.

Their bewilderment over the Apple's cult-like success shows they don't really
understand what's going on. The one concrete piece of advice is:

> If you're business is failing, try to build a community of loyal fans who
> buy into your "David & Goliath" story.

Which is just another way of saying:

> If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

------
eli_gottlieb
Marketing really shouldn't be learning from cults. Don't Be Evil.

------
magikarp
That was a great read.

------
michaelochurch
Very interesting. Four thoughts.

1\. I don't like the term "cult" and the baggage associated with it. "Cult"
seems to mean "religion with fewer than 10 million adherents". The more
politically correct (but also more useful term) is NRM: New Religious
Movement. They don't all end up here:
[http://walkthrough.starmen.net/earthbound/image/maps/happyha...](http://walkthrough.starmen.net/earthbound/image/maps/happyhappyhq.png)
. Forming communities is one of the major reasons why people subscribe to
religions of all sizes (anxiety about death isn't it, contrary to modern
claims; although few are sure exactly what ancient people believed, belief in
gods seems to pre-date belief in a desirable afterlife by millennia) and the
power law dynamic of community formation applies. Small doesn't mean "bad".

2\. Corporations themselves are like cults in accord with this depiction,
between the largely unnecessary administrative hierarchies, the drudge work,
the unquestionable assertions from authority, and the us-versus-them
mentality. Many gods are fictional psychopaths invented by ambitious people
for material gain, and many corporations are... well, the same. Quite
literally, corporations are treated as persons despite their psychopathic lack
of balance and humanity, much like that of an ancient god.

3\. VC-istan is a cult for avowed non-cultists or, to continue the company-as-
cult metaphor, an atheist religion. Instead of executives, it's VCs at the
top. Instead of PMs, the middling ranks are full of EIRs and "founders" who
aren't taking real risks because the VCs have already decided who's in the in-
crowd (if they don't like an idea but you're in their world, they "mentor" you
till you converge on something they'll fund). Instead of "middle managers",
there are "tech leads". Startup equity (disbursed, to rank and file, at
insulting low levels) is designed to make worker bees feel like owners (and
put in long hours) and bullshit perks are used to create a "halfway house"
college feel for people forced into prolonged adolescence by high housing
prices and social sacrifice. Instead of managers meeting behind closed doors
to decide your year end "performance" bonus based on political factors,
investors and large-company purchasers meet behind closed doors to discuss the
acqui-hire that will determine your financial future... but it's the same
thing.

4\. Man, I think I'd be good at starting a cult. Maybe I should Kickstart that
shit.

~~~
j45
Well written. Write more often.

~~~
unimpressive
He has a blog.

[https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/](https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/)

