Former Cult Member Answers Cult Questions From Twitter

Who has experienced escaping from a cult?

Well, at Hams007, many people have escaped from cults,

and I'm happy to say that I'm one of them.

Hi, I'm Dr. Janja Lalich, I was once in a cult.

Now I'm a sociologist who studies and writes about cults.

Today, I'm here to answer your questions on Twitter.

This is Cult Support.

[upbeat music]

At arithefairy asked,

How did Charles Manson even get a cult, like ew.

Well, at arithefairy, here he is, Charles Manson.

And he was a very successful cult leader,

because at the time, which was the hippie days

of the 60s and 70s, you know, people were exploring,

they were doing new things.

They were living in the streets.

Charles could come along,

and he had a very Svengali, charismatic appeal.

He would look in your eyes, and he would draw you in.

And also what's important about what Manson did,

was that he used drugs.

He would often, you know, give one of the girls LSD,

and she would believe that she had some kind of, you know,

enlightened, spiritual experience.

And that way, she felt even more bonded to Charles,

but that is unusual, most cults do not use drugs.

They don't need to use drugs.

They're using basic social psychology.

At MyOpiniondMan asks, What's a movie about cults,

that in your opinion, is a must-watch?

Working on something regarding cults and movies,

and am trying to grab every last hidden gem.

At MyOpinionsMan, I would say in my opinion,

the best movie about cults

is The Master with Joaquin Phoenix.

It's one of the best depictions of the relationship

between the charismatic leader and the true believer.

And it's a very tightly knit relationship

that has an imbalance of power,

because the one with charisma has power over you,

and that's the rub.

So that person can pretty much get you to do anything,

so that you get to the point where you think

you can't even live without that person.

And of course, it's doubly interesting,

because Joaquin Phoenix himself grew up in a cult.

At WellReadWife asks, Be honest with me,

before I get sucked in, is LuLaRoe a cult?

Are we just buying our cute cult uniforms?

LuLaRoe is quite a questionable retail organization,

at this point.

And I don't think you want to wear that uniform.

At beaniebbluvr asks,

Why do cult leaders always have to be weirdo freaks

that abused their members?

When will we see a cult leader

who's really just a chill guy?

Cult leaders are not gonna be chill.

Cult leaders are power-hungry individuals,

who are typically narcissists,

who believe that the world revolves around them.

They aren't necessarily weirdo freaks.

Some of them may look like a classy businessman.

Remember the leader of Heaven's Gate?

This is what he looked like when we saw him

on those video clips, the night before

they all committed suicide.

But this is not what Marshall Applewhite looked like

when he was recruiting followers.

He kind of had that professorial look,

or like, your nice Uncle.

The cult leader might become a little demented,

might start using too many drugs,

might start looking really weird,

but they certainly don't start out that way.

Because who would follow a weirdo?

At marinacee asks, I'm intrigued by the Heaven's Gate Cult.

Why the Nike shoes?

There was a complete lack of individuality

in the Heaven's Gate Cult.

People had to dress in a way

that they were completely androgynous.

So they wore what they considered was their uniform.

Everyone had the same patch on their sleeve,

they all went out and bought these Nike shoes.

It was just part of their outfit.

There was certainly no special meaning to it, but again,

it was a way to make them all be exactly the same,

so that they all went along with the idea

that they would drink that poisonous potion,

put the bag over their head, and go to their Homeland.

They didn't believe they were committing suicide,

they thought they were choosing life.

In fact, let me read you from- this is one of their books.

It's called, Ruffles 'Snacks for Thinkers'.

This book was given to me by Dick Joslyn,

who was one of the longtime members of the group.

It's dated July 7th, 1979.

And they all contributed little sayings to this book.

Life is not a time to prepare for death.

Death is a time to prepare for life.

Life is a time for learning to live

like the one who came to show us how.

They believed that they were going to be picked up,

by a spaceship, and taken to what they called,

The level above human, where they were gonna

live forever in a paradise.

And the rest of the world, and the Earth,

was just going to be shattered and destroyed.

At toneboy asks, Neighbors on our street

are trying to barricade themselves in.

Are the Branch Davidians still a thing?

If so, do they have a Twitter account?

Or do I go straight to the FBI?

We have kind of a policy in our country

of not paying too much attention to what the neighbors do.

And one of the fallouts of that

is sometimes we do have a cult next door.

There are still people who believe in David Koresh,

and who actually think he's coming back.

I don't think those are your neighbors.

Maybe your neighbors are just trying

to get away from the world.

Maybe they don't like you.

3FormsRpowrHows asks, Who are the Moonies?

The Moonies are the Moon organization

that was founded by Reverend Reverend Sun Myung Moon

back in the 70s, and had a very huge following

all around the world.

They were probably best known for those mass weddings

that they would have, like in Madison Square Garden.

He has since passed away,

and now there are three splinter groups

started by his wife and the three sons.

And some of those groups are quite active,

especially the one in America that's run by Sean Moon.

And he wears a crown of bullets,

as do some of the other followers.

Reverend Moon was quite friendly with George Bush,

Daddy Bush, and his wife, who used to attend

some of their gatherings.

At boomerbats asked, I wonder, do cult members join

when they are at the brink of insanity?

Or are they already mentally ill?

Or are they perfectly functioning humans

that were casually looking

for a new set of beliefs to follow, and later on,

lost their sanity in the process?

Oh, at boomerbats.

I get this question so often, you know,

people have the idea that the people who get into cults

have some kind of mental problems,

and that's absolutely not the case.

First of all, cults want to recruit

high-functioning individuals.

They want people with money,

and they want people with connections.

They want you to be a good worker,

they want you to work very hard.

Cult leaders don't work very much,

they're usually pretty lazy.

So everyone else has to keep the show going.

You know, cults aren't going to take care of you,

you're there to take care of them.

So they're looking for the kind of person

who can perform for them,

who can bring in good contacts,

that will lend legitimacy to the group.

Now, while you're in the cult,

you may develop all kinds of anxiety and panic attacks,

because of the stress of what you're living under.

But it's good idealistic people who get into cults,

they think they're going to change the world,

or do something important in life,

and then they're taking advantage of.

At SaraIsSkyBlue asks, What defines a cult?

Pretty sure you could call anything a cult.

First of all, we have the leader,

who is charismatic, and usually a narcissist.

Second, we have what I call,

The transcendent belief system,

that gives you the answer to everything.

Third are what I call, Systems of control.

Things like, what you should wear, what you should eat,

who you can marry, how many kids

you should have, or shouldn't have.

And fourth is the systems of influence.

The cult will be playing on fear, love, grief, you know,

whatever your emotions are,

to get you to comply and conform.

At leonahcoz asks, How do you leave a cult?

Asking for a friend.

Well, leonahcoz, here's what I think

you should tell your friend.

It's not easy to leave a cult.

It's one of the hardest things someone's ever gonna do.

And the most important thing,

is for those of us on the outside,

to be that safe haven.

Let the person know that you're a place

that they can come to whenever they want.

And they can sleep if they want to sleep,

they don't have to talk.

So it's just a matter of having some resources

on the outside that may help you to build a new life.

At Onsider asks, What types of cults are illegal

according to US law?

It's not the cults, per se, that are illegal,

it's what they do.

So in order to hold some group accountable,

you have to have enough evidence

of some kind of criminal activity,

so that law enforcement might get involved.

Many cults will become a religion,

and hope that they can hide behind the first amendment.

At Lexual asks, I couldn't help but wonder,

when does a cult become a religion,

and when does a religion become a cult?

First of all, not every religion becomes a cult,

and not every cults becomes a religion.

Cults can be any type of belief system,

it doesn't have anything to do with religion at all.

It can be new age, it can be some kind of philosophy.

A religion may have guidelines for you to live by,

like be a good person, be kind to your neighbor,

don't use contraception.

But in most cases, people from that religion

aren't coming into your bedroom at night

to see if you're using contraception.

So that's one of the main differences

between a cult and a religion.

In a religion, you should have freedom

and independent thinking.

At Hams007 asks, Who has experienced escaping from a cult?

Well, at Hams007, many people have escaped from cults,

and I'm happy to say that I'm one of them.

I was in a political cult, it was left-wing,

and we were planning and hoping to make the revolution.

We actually didn't think it would happen in our lifetime,

we saw ourselves as martyrs for the cause.

But what happened is, after about 10-and-a-half years,

everyone was so burned out.

Some of us, in leadership, realized how corrupt

the leader was, in just taking advantage of us.

So we called together everybody,

and we told them what was going on.

And we had a vote, and we unanimously voted to expel her

and to dissolve the organization.

And so everyone got out, it was wonderful.

That's absolutely not a common scenario.

I can think of maybe one, perhaps two other groups,

that ended in that way.

At Joss_X asks, How do cults even happen?

Like people really be letting themselves

be brainwashed like that?

So, at Joss_X, let me explain how this works.

We all have days when we don't feel so great,

or maybe we just moved to a new town,

or maybe we just got divorced, or maybe our dog just died.

And at that point, we hear a person up there

who's giving us some kind of pitch

that's going to change your life.

Now that pitch has to appeal to you,

it's not gonna appeal to everybody.

You know, I always say I never would have joined

a meditation group 'cause I can't sit still that long.

But a political group that was gonna change the world,

well, that sounded fantastic to me, right?

And then you make that commitment.

And often that commitment is made in front of other people.

In my group, we had to stand up and make a pledge

that we were gonna do this for the rest of our life.

People don't get brainwashed overnight,

this is a resocialization process.

It's changing you to be the person that they want you to be,

to be the good, conforming, complying cult member

who will go out and recruit other people,

and do the work for the cult.

At nicklohr asks, Why do cults always have everyone

wear the same outfit?

Well, at nicklohr, not every cult does that.

The Rajneesh cult, back in the day,

where everyone had to wear orange,

some shade of orange.

Here, for example, is a group

where everyone's dressed the same.

The reason they do that is to break down your sense of self.

If everyone looks alike, there's no individuality among you.

And it's an easy way to get you to conform

and comply to the demands of the group.

At cloverdosee asked, Why were cults

so big in the 70s, y'all, I'll never get it.

The 70s, of course, were a very special time.

New-age ideas were taking hold.

And of course that was a time when there were many communes,

and so people were living together,

and that can be a breeding ground for a cult to take hold.

If you have someone who wants power

and takes advantage of that environment.

The 70s was also a time when there were

a lot of political cults.

It was the end of the Vietnam War era.

And so people on the left were looking for something to do,

and a lot of these little groups got started.

You may remember this one, Patricia Hearst,

who was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

This is her after her indoctrination,

where she took the name Tanya,

and went along to rob some banks,

including the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco.

At MOBM0M asks, How did Jim Jones even establish Jonestown?

It seems unreal.

Here we have Jim Jones, who was a pastor,

who had a huge following.

So Jones had a very lively, quite large church,

in San Francisco, where he did faith healing

and other things, and had very loyal followers.

One of the local newspapers was going to write

an expose about him.

And so he had already been sort of planning for this,

and had already bought land in Guiana.

So he told all his followers to go there.

And so everyone went there, 900-and-some people,

and that's where the tragedy happened.

He took away their passports,

so even if you wanted to leave, you couldn't leave.

The children were brutally punished,

sometimes hung upside down in wells.

So people were afraid, they were afraid for their life,

and they were- there they were, in the middle of nowhere.

Eventually an investigation was called.

And so a Congressman from California came to investigate.

Jones had them murdered.

The poisoned flavor aid, which is commonly called Kool-Aid,

now was made, and people were forced to take that,

the children were injected first.

And in the end, there was the mass suicide-murder

that happened, 913 people died, and over 200 children.

At cammandatory asks, Why does Peloton feel like a cult?

It may feel like a cult because you're sweating so much.

But also there's a sense of accomplishment,

a sense of belonging, you're with other people

who are also doing Peloton,

and that feels really good.

Of course, it's important to recognize

that the fitness industry has quite a few groups

that are quite cult-like.

So it's important to check out what you're doing,

and be a good consumer.

At userbits asks, How did hashtag NXIVM become a cult?

Imagine hoping to buy a timeshare,

or brush up your personal skills,

and getting sucked into sex trafficking?

Well, Keith Raniere was a con-artist,

and he was skilled at setting up sort of pyramid schemes.

NXIVM started out as a kind of multi-level marketing program

where people would take these courses,

and then be expected to recruit other people

into these courses.

Some of them were encouraged to move to Albany, New York,

where the headquarters was,

and people set up centers in different cities

around the country.

Keith, of course, was a pedophile and a sadist.

So he set up kind of a cult within the cult,

which was called DOS, where each woman

had a certain number of people below her.

They were to recruit other people into this.

But the real purpose of it was to feed women

to Raniere for sex.

The other part of it was that he liked really skinny women.

And so these women were told

to be on a 500 calorie-a-day diet,

and they were just becoming completely emaciated,

they were no longer having their menstrual periods,

their hair was falling out, it was absolutely brutal.

Fortunately, some people worked very hard

to blow the whistle on this, and happily,

Keith Raniere is now in prison for 120 years.

At MattGriffith asks, What kind of cults are people

who sell hair products on Instagram a part of?

I'm not sure what you're specifically referring to,

MattGriffith, but there are certainly a lot of cults

and cult-like groups within the wellness industry,

selling all kinds of products, and potions,

and things to make you feel better.

At jesssica-evans asks, Serious question,

how many people does it take to form a cult?

Can a cult be just two people?

Yes, jesssica_evans, a cult can be just two people.

And I call those one-on-one cults.

And we see a great deal of those these days.

People are becoming more aware

of practices like gaslighting.

And what happens when a person

has that kind of control over you?

So a cult can be any size,

from thousands of members, to just two.

At UncvrngTheTruth asks, When do cult members realize

they're in a cult?

Well, this, of course, is what I always hope for,

that someone will realize they're in a cult,

and then try to figure out how to get out.

I think everyone in a cult has doubts, and those doubts,

you know, they're not able to express them.

So people have these doubts, and the way I see it,

is they kind of put them on a shelf

in the back of their head, right?

And that shelf gets heavier and heavier.

And hopefully at one point,

the shelf gets heavy enough that it breaks.

And at that moment, they'll realize that something's wrong.

They may not identify it as a cult,

but they think that this is not a group

that's in their best interest.

And they probably should think about leaving.

At TruReflections asks, Is it just me

or were cults more prevalent pre-internet/social media?

Hashtag PeopleMagazineInvestigates.

Yes, there have always been cults.

We can go back in history to the Roman Empire,

to the Essenes, to the days of Jesus.

It's a social human phenomenon

that's always been with us.

There certainly were a lot of cults pre-internet,

but of course, as we see today, there are many,

many cults that are operating on the internet.

Certainly we saw this with Qanon,

and all the other kinds of conspiracy theories.

So yes, there are cults before,

and there will be cults again,

and there are always cults.

At OldNormality asks, What do cult members do

when the cult collapses?

All that dedication to for absolutely nothing.

When the cult collapses,

it's often quite tragic for the believers,

because now that- their whole life has just fallen apart.

So they have to figure out, What do I do now?

People may drift away, splinter groups may start.

Someone may try to take over and rise as the leader.

And in some circumstances,

there may have been a violent ending,

as we saw with the Branch Davidians in Waco.

But again, that kind of thing is usually the exception,

and not every group is gonna end that way.

At lowayne asks, Do cult leaders know

that they're cult leaders?

Probably 99% are con artists,

and they know exactly what they're doing.

Some of them may eventually become delusional,

because they get away with so much for so long.

So they kind of get carried away,

and actually think that they're God,

but it's really a combination of that narcissism,

and then, perhaps, they have a bit

of sociopathy or psychopathy.

But I think most of them are sitting back

and laughing at their followers.

So those are all the questions for today.

And I hope that if you know someone in a cult,

you'll have some tools now to be able to help them get out.

I hope that if you're in a cult,

you'll find a way to get out,

and go through the kind of recovery

that's needed to get on with your life.

Thanks for watching Cult Support.