
My Childhood in a Cult - kurmouk
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/06/my-childhood-in-a-cult
======
empath75
Someone I knew was raised in a similar UFO cult. Her mother died when she was
young, her dad was a neglectful drug addict. There were times where she and
her brother were abandoned for days, and she’d literally survive by eating dog
food.

At some point, her dad met and married a woman, who happened to be in a UFO
cult like this, where they thought many of them had been abducted or had had
close encounters of various kinds. This woman, who I met many years later, was
funny and kind and took care of my friend and gave her unconditional love in a
way that she had never experienced and treated her like a daughter. Her real
dad disappeared again and went off to Canada permanently, leaving her with the
cult as her only family. It was a distinct step up as a family situation from
how she was raised.

In 2000, when my friend was 17 or 18, the whole cult went off into a compound
in the mountains waiting for the world to end and go off into space. My
friend, who was super intelligent and curious, at that point was skeptical,
but she went because it was the only family she had.

The world didn’t end, and she turned 18 and moved out on her own.

I met her a few years later, and we started dating, not knowing any of this
back story — she was remarkably _normal_ , all considering — and at some
point, she told me the story of going off into the woods, and I laughed and
just sort of assumed she was as cynical about that as she was about everything
else — but her eyes flashed with anger and I realized I had stepped on a land
mine.

It wasn’t that she really believed in aliens, or that she had been abducted by
aliens as her foster mother had convinced her of, when she was younger. She
just wanted to believe that this woman who loved her and had saved her wasn’t
crazy, so she held open the possibility in her mind.

Cults are complicated, and so are families.

~~~
ordu
_> I met her a few years later, and we started dating, not knowing any of this
back story — she was remarkably normal, all considering — and at some point,
she told me the story of going off into the woods, and I laughed and just sort
of assumed she was as cynical about that as she was about everything else —
but her eyes flashed with anger and I realized I had stepped on a land mine._

My guess, that it is nothing to do with her cynism or beliefs. You can be
sceptical about Christian God, and at the same time you may be angry with
people who make fun of sacred items and rituals. It was a _real_ emotional
experience for her and for others, it is something that you seem to miss, and
your laugh offended all of that. The land mine was not a belief system, but a
narrative, while you thought of that as of funny adventure of stupid people,
she thought about people whom she knew empathically.

------
vishvananda
Prior to my life in technology I had similar experiences to the author. I was
involved with multiple spiritual groups that could be classified as cults. One
mistake that I have seen people without first-hand experience make is assuming
that the people are in it to deceive or take advantage of others.

On the contrary, I have seen that people in these groups often have the best
intentions. For a long time, it was a mystery to me how these groups could end
up going so wrong, often devolving into gun battles, suicides, or sexual
deviance. A few years ago I found a book called "The Guru Papers"[0] which
does a fantastic job of explaining how these things occur, even in well-
intentioned groups. If you have been involved in a group like this, or are
just curious about the psychology involved, I highly recommend it.

[0]: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007WL0JHE/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007WL0JHE/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

~~~
wpietri
Another resource I like is the ABCDEF framework:
[http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html](http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html)

It's a nice way of scoring some group to see how cult-like it is.

------
pc2g4d
Cults fill important human needs for human connection, structure, seemingly-
legitimate authority, existential meaning and a driving purpose for life. To
the degree these aren't provided by healthier structures in our society,
individuals will be drawn to these organizations. And many things which we do
not often think of as cults in many ways fit into the broader conception
thereof: militaries, political parties, yoga studios, etc. have all been known
to fall into that classification.

Steve Hasan's BITE model is a great framework for thinking about these things.
In many ways, control of behavior, information, thoughts, and emotions is what
all human organizations do, so it's more of a cost/benefit analysis than an
either/or analysis that's called for. There are varying degrees of
"cultiness". Recommended reading: "Combating Cult Mind Control".

An evolutionary analysis of these sorts of social structures is also
fascinating. If you treat a cult like a superorganism that must compete for
resources with other organizations in the culture, you can understand many of
the pressures driving them. Jonathan Haidt has shown how "morality binds and
blinds", and this is nowhere stronger than in cults whose distinct moral code
both binds people together into a unit, and blinds them to the true nature of
the group.

~~~
solipsism
_In many ways, control of behavior, information, thoughts, and emotions is
what all human organizations do_

I'm pretty cynical, and I recognize how pervasive and successful these
manipulation techniques are (so pervasive that it seems silly to talk about
them as if they're particular to cults at all), but it seems wrong to say "all
human organizations" seek to control. Unless you consider things like the
following examples of control: disseminating information, saving lives or
healing people, having fun, etc.

I think it would be much more accurate to say there's the potential for
manipulation to seep into any human organization. But a weekend softball
league isn't manipulating anyone.

Give humanity a little credit.

~~~
cobbzilla
Exertion of control does not always imply manipulation; compliance can be
enthusiastic and voluntary.

A weekend softball league might schedule games, which to a (yes, _very_ minor)
degree, is all about controlling who goes where and when for those who want to
play softball.

Really, if an organization cannot expect voluntary compliance from its members
on anything at all, is it even an organization? A single shared common belief
is all it takes.

~~~
solipsism
This reduces the meaning of "control" to be completely useless. "Combating
mind control" kind of loses its edge if you're going to war with book clubs.

~~~
forkandwait
Control is both enabling and disabling, depending on the specifics; I think
that is an important lesson that can come from looking at "cults".

Examples of enabling control: Learning math was forced on me as a child
(unlike reading, I _hated_ doing problems), but its importance to my life
cannot be overstated. I join exercise classes to control myself and make sure
that I get healthier. Etc. While there is a lot of difference between these
and a "cult", I think the point of the OP is that control isn't simply bad.

~~~
solipsism
And yet that doesn't change the point of this thread -- that it's going too
far to say all human organizations exert control over their members.

~~~
forkandwait
I think the point of the thread is a _discussion_ of whether "all human
organizations exert control..." You disagree, but I think the statement under
question is basically correct. Your last reply doesn't add any support to your
position.

------
01100011
It's easy to dismiss cults until you realize how easily an intelligent person
can fall under their spell. Many cults have very logical belief systems
predicated on a few twisted axioms. If you convince an intelligent, rational
person that those axioms are true, you have them. Often the smartest folks are
drawn in because they are used to having beliefs and convictions far outside
the mainstream which are rooted in reason(general relativity, for example).

I grew up atheist, but ended up spending about 6 years in a cult-like,
nameless, christian denomination. It wasn't until the results of their belief
system became absurd that I started to question the entire system.

~~~
pif
> If you convince an intelligent, rational person that those axioms are true,

If you convince them that those axioms are true, than they are not intelligent
nor rational.

~~~
sudhirj
No, this kind of reductive thinking doesn’t hold. Ever heard of that alchemist
quack who also did some math on the side? Newton, his name was.

~~~
pif
From Wikipedia:

 _Alchemy (from Arabic: al-kīmiyā) was an ancient branch of natural
philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition practiced throughout
Europe, Africa, and Asia, originating in Greco-Roman Egypt in the first few
centuries AD. It aims to purify, mature, and perfect certain objects. Common
aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of "base metals" (e.g., lead) into
"noble metals" (particularly gold); the creation of an elixir of immortality;
the creation of panaceas able to cure any disease; and the development of an
alkahest, a universal solvent._

So, what was irrational with alchemy at the times Newton lived?

------
mirimir
Back in the mid 80s, I attended a Heaven's Gate presentation. The ideology was
preposterous, but they were interesting people. And very into computers and
stuff.

One of our friends joined, notwithstanding our advice. We remained off-and-on
in touch, and he seemed happy, and up to cool stuff. But then he was one of
the 1997 suicides.

~~~
studentrob
Sorry to hear that. I think we all think of cults as something distant and
weird, but the reality is if you're in one or close to one, you are not aware
of it, almost by definition.

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theobeers
"The community founded by the late Mel Lyman is still around today and runs a
flourishing home-renovation business in the Los Angeles area."

In case anyone else was curious, the company is called Fort Hill Construction.
Here's their website, where you can get a sense of just how well they've done:

[http://www.forthill.com/](http://www.forthill.com/)

~~~
caublestone
This is the best real estate site experience I’ve ever had on mobile.

~~~
Scoundreller
It’s almost like they _want_ my money. A very unusual model for
restaurant/real estate websites.

------
duxup
>See, now the whole story has taken a turn. You’ve maybe forgotten everything
I wrote before. You’re horrified; you want to know more. I’ve told you these
things because I didn’t want you to think I was weak or timid, or apologetic
about some of the uncomfortable truths. Now I can’t take them back.

That is a pretty hard turn but maybe a good lesson too about how in this day
and age there is so little room for understanding that we struggle to think of
anything else once we hear things that are objectionable.

------
mschuster91
For those who ask us Germans why we're so adamantly opposed to homeschooling
and why we have mandatory medical checkups for children/infants
("Vorsorgeuntersuchungen"): this is why.

Having kids end up immersed in cults and brainwashed is a real risk, and the
costs that society has to bear once these kids "wake up" is immense. Not to
mention kids ending up totally uneducated and unfit for adult life due to
plainly incompetent parents and the follow-up costs of that.

~~~
philwelch
Assuming that the government itself doesn’t get taken over by a cult, as has
happened in some countries.

~~~
mschuster91
Yeah but not even Scientology managed to do this in the US...

~~~
philwelch
If you interpret “cult” slightly less literally, I’m sure you can think of
some fairly vivid examples of cults that have seized control of the
governments of even developed countries, and used that power to indoctrinate
children via the official school system. In a situation like that, some
homeschooling might have even been beneficial, compared to the alternative.

~~~
hycaria
What's on the back of your mind exactly ? Why the shroud of mystery ?

~~~
philwelch
For instance, it isn’t hard to think of the Khmer Rouge or the fascist
movements as political cults.

~~~
mschuster91
I would not make it so easy for the fascists to excuse them as cults. Fascists
all know what they want (exterminating everybody not deemed worthy for their
race), and they all owed their success to "conservatives" who would rather
support them in their mission than to give up privileges.

------
eternalban
[https://www.trussel.com/f_mel.htm](https://www.trussel.com/f_mel.htm)

------
0_gravitas
> What I tell them is that, if you haven’t heard of a cult, it’s because it
> didn’t go down in flames. Its members are just quietly doing what they do,
> which means that there are many more active cults today than we are aware
> of.

100%, I personally have a story titled "how my grandmother got me involved
with a Brazilian cult for a week", if you do a quick search for "John of God"
you will probably immediately find it. It wasn't a doomsday cult or a massive
incestuous orgy, but it was clearly one if these "oh this is actually a
massive scam" with _extremely_ loyal followers. My grandmother and her husband
actually went to something he hosted in New York a year or so ago iirc.

EDIT: Holy shit just looked now and apparently he was arrested in January for
having a BUNCH of child sex slaves and other stuff

~~~
thanatropism
All kinds of celebrities and politicians went to John of God too.

~~~
0_gravitas
Y'know, this is a story that I would always tell my friends in a lighthearted
way cause its just a pretty absurd story... boy does this add some punch to it
now

------
forkandwait
One of the best low budget cult/ sci fi movies ever made:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Endless_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Endless_\(film\))

