Escaping Utopia

by Lalich, Janja; McLaren, Karla;

  For cultic groups, outside sources of information are unnecessary—and they’re either denigrated or outright forbidden. Everything is focused on the cult’s ideas: there is only one point of view; it comes from the almighty leader; and it is never to be challenged. A cult member is not expected to consider other ideas, but only to obey the leader, embody the transcendent belief system, and follow along with her peers. Her resulting compliance may become an example to others; and soon, compliance and obedience will become the norm. When group compliance reaches a tipping point, leadership tends to become emboldened into exerting greater and greater pressure upon group members. Not only do the group’s demands and expectations become more extreme (beyond the typical influence of peer pressure, for instance), but once compliance is a group norm, no one will be left to object or appeal for fairness and justice. If members somehow manage to object—which goes against every rule and norm of cultic groups—they will be reported, shunned, punished, demoted, or threatened with expulsion.

  The threat of expulsion or excommunication is a very potent one, due to the way that the outside world is framed by cultic groups. A young man raised in the Holiness Movement recalled constant warnings about the outside world; his group was persuaded to believe that the world was a deeply treacherous place:

  They filled us with fear about leaving. A lot of it was suggestions or examples about people who departed from the movement. They would lose their marriage, or they might end up losing their sanity, and a bunch of other things. I don’t remember all the things, but it was all very fearful. Basically, you couldn’t survive on the outside.

  Cultic systems of influence function as all-pervasive webs of interactions and social norms that serve the goals of the cult and its leadership. In these powerful webs of influence, members learn to adapt their thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors in deference to the group’s rules, needs, and threats. For instance, a young woman who was born and raised in the Worldwide Church of God recalled the decisions she made in response to the apocalyptic prophecies of her group:

  I grew up in a culture of fear. There were constant images, pictures of nuclear holocausts, of bombs, of people starving to death, of the holocaust itself. Those were the images that were played to me as a kid. There was an idea that our leader had: that we were all going before Jesus came back. We were all going to be whisked off to a place of safety. So there were constant warnings about how we were just going to lose everything. We would have to leave it all behind—and were you willing to leave everything you had? So as a kid, I never really had stuff because, in my mind, we were going to leave it behind anyway.

  Each group’s systems of influence create a restricted social network and a confining culture that are regularly reinforced by each member’s conformity and obedience. This obedience is often imposed—not through obvious punishments, but through an atmosphere of impossible expectations and constant criticisms. A young woman who was born and raised in a small fundamentalist Southern Baptist church remembers feeling as if nothing she ever did was right:

  We got in trouble a lot, you know, for whatever kids do. Basically I was told that I should be ashamed and that God was disappointed with me, and mom was disappointed with me. The way I felt was that the universe doesn’t love me anymore, and I’m a terrible person because I broke a glass or whatever. We got in trouble for a lot of intangible things, like expressing emotion, strong emotion. You can’t be angry. If you’re sad, nobody knows what to do. We didn’t get punished for being sad, but it was just like, “Oh, my God, she’s crying! What do we do!” You can’t get angry with your parents. You can’t get angry about anything. If we kids were fighting with each other, we would both be told to be ashamed of ourselves, etc., etc. I think that what affected me the most was with my mother; I was just not able to really express myself. Anything that was negative that came out of me was a shameful thing. And both she and God disapproved. When I talk about it, it doesn’t sound that serious. But when I was little, it had a big impact. I was a very sensitive kid and very shy and very dependent on my mom. Yeah, it made a big impact.

  This confined and confining culture is justified by the promise that each member’s obedience and self-denial will lead directly to salvation (however that’s defined in each group). In the political cult Janja was in, for example, members were made to believe that the extremely harsh discipline they endured and perpetrated on each other was necessary to reach the alleged freedom of the ultimate social revolution. This glaring contradiction between harsh punishments and so-called freedom was acclaimed as the “dialectic of freedom and necessity” and, as you might imagine, the abuses were rampant.4

  How Systems of Influence Entrap People

  Social scientists have understood for decades that influence can be manipulative, and that group systems can and do affect behavior in powerful ways.5 One early and classic study by renowned psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton offers a clear model for understanding the social and psychological manipulation that takes place in cultic groups.6

  Lifton interviewed American prisoners of war captured during the Korean War, and he also observed and studied the behavioral modification processes that were occurring in Chinese Communist schools under the leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong. Through his studies of people confined in these settings, Lifton identified eight social-psychological techniques commonly used to create what he calls “ideological totalism,” or the assimilation of an individual into an all-or-nothing belief system that shuts off his or her ability to even consider other ways of thinking or being. Lifton found that this type of intense and unthinking dedication can be developed in almost anyone—it’s a normal human tendency—which unfor-tunately makes all of us susceptible to systems of influence. In some cases, this susceptibility is exploited by apocalyptic groups to create fanatically devoted cult members who become willing and deadly agents of extremism.7

  To some degree, all cultic systems of influence and control include a combination of the eight social-psychological influence techniques identified by Lifton.8 As we describe each technique, we explore its connection to our bounded choice model:

  1.

  Milieu Control: The group controls all communication and information, which includes each individual’s communication with herself. This sets up what Lifton calls “personal closure,” where the person no longer struggles with thoughts of what is true or real. Milieu control works to isolate members and silence internal doubts; it is a part of cultic systems of influence and systems of control.

  2.

  Mystical Manipulation: The group asserts that they or their leader have divine, supreme, or political power. The group or the leader may orchestrate events that support their supposed power or verify their central beliefs—and then pretend that these events occurred spontaneously. The leader may also manipulate or reframe information to his or her advantage, and to assert his or her supreme authority. Mystical manipulation is connected to a group’s transcendent belief system, charismatic authority figure, and systems of influence.

  3.

  Demand for Purity: The group demands absolute dedication, and the leader is the ultimate moral authority who decides whether the dedication is sufficient (it almost never is). This creates an atmosphere of everyday punishment and humiliation. It also sets up an environment of competition, where members will spy on and report each other. This demand fills people with crippling amounts of guilt and shame, such that they may lose touch with their own sense of morality. The demand for purity is connected to a group’s systems of control, systems of influence, and the charismatic authority figure.

  4.

  Cult of Confession: The group requires public confession and self-exposure. In many cults, increasingly extreme acts of self-exposure are celebrated as signs of true dedication. Members may lose their sense of balance between self-worth and humility, between what is private and what should be shared, and between their personal self and their idealized group self. This loss of balance and boundaries may en
trap members, such that they may feel almost owned by the group. The cult of confession is connected to a group’s systems of influence.

  5.

  Sacred Science: The group asserts that it has the Ultimate Truth. Challenges are not allowed, and questions are dismissed, treated superficially, or thrown back at questioners. This shuts down members’ critical-thinking capacities and inhibits their creative self-expression and personal development. Life is perceived only through the filter of the group’s transcendent belief system; no other beliefs or ideas are allowed.

  6.

  Loading the Language: The group creates specialized jargon (or communication techniques) that is understood only by insiders, which makes members feel special. However, it also isolates members from the rest of society and reduces their capacity for imagination and original thought. Loading the language is a subtle yet potent way to enforce conformity, and it is connected to a group’s systems of influence.

  7.

  Doctrine over Person: The group’s doctrines, beliefs, and needs take precedence over anyone and everyone. Members must deny their own needs, private thoughts, and personal experiences if any of these contradict the group’s doctrine. The past—of society and each member—is altered to fit the group’s beliefs, and individuality is erased. The doctrine over person serves to create the cult persona, and it is connected to a group’s systems of influence and transcendent belief system.

  8.

  Dispensing of Existence: The group makes ultimate decisions about who is an enlightened insider and who is an inferior outsider. Inferior people must be converted, and if they don’t join or are critical of the group, they must be rejected and shunned as non-people—or as evil. In extremist cults, these non-people may be punished, harmed, or killed. People outside the group are stripped of credibility and humanity, which teaches cult members that there is no world and no life outside the group. The dispensing of existence strongly suggests that group membership requires fanatical obedience, and it is connected to a group’s systems of control, systems of influence, and transcendent belief system.

  These eight influence techniques serve to erase individuality and deconstruct members’ core selves so that they can become perfect and unquestioning followers. A young woman who was born and raised in The Family describes the point at which she lost her sense of individuality, stopped questioning, and surrendered herself to the group:

  We would have lesson sharing, where we would have to share with the group something we did wrong that week and what we learned from it. Occasionally there would be prayers for deliverance where we’d have to kneel down and everyone would pray over us, casting out demons and so forth. We also had to write periodic “Open Heart Reports.” This OHR practice started when I was about eight years old, and we had to write down our feelings and battles as well as our reactions to the religious literature we read, and our shepherds would comment on our OHRs. At first I struggled and thought things were not fair; I was really trying to be good, yet I still got into trouble. My spiritual problem was diagnosed as self-righteousness and daydreaming, which pretty much meant having self-confidence and thinking about anything that wasn’t based on the teachings. After a couple of months, I remember things clicking in my mind one day that everything was all my fault, that I was bad and worthless, evil even, and that was why I was always getting into trouble. During this time I also remember making a conscious decision to surrender my family to God, whatever that meant.

  Influence techniques like the OHR deliberately attack people’s self-image and self-concept (or their core self) and make them feel inherently defective. The core self encompasses all of the ways that people approach, react to, and cope with thoughts, emotions, relationships, and life events. We all develop psychological defense mechanisms to protect our core selves and to perceive, interpret, and deal with reality in our own unique ways. Sadly, systematic attacks on these defense mechanisms (such as the OHR, oral or written confessions, selfcriticisms, peer rebukes, and reporting) destabilize our inner equilibrium, our perception of reality, and our core selves.

  “Alter the self or perish” is the unstated motto of many groups that require this type of extreme self-transformation. The purpose of these continual intimate assaults on the core self is to tear members down to the point that they begin to identify and merge with the group (or the narcissistic leader). In this environment, members may become extremely anxious about their self-worth—or even about their very existence. Along with this may arise intense feelings of personal disintegration, of falling apart, of feeling that you don’t know or understand anything anymore. But the cult is there to pick up the pieces and puts you back together in its desired mold.

  Children are especially vulnerable to systems of influence because their selves are not fully formed and are therefore uniquely susceptible to influence and persuasion. Parents in cults do not provide much protection, given that they’re often entrapped themselves. In many cases, cult parents are not really parents in the classic sense; instead, they’re pawns or instruments of the leader and the transcendent belief system (as we saw in Chapters 2 and 3). In these environments, children are often left to raise themselves or are raised by unrelated group members who have no real interest in them. Consequently, cult children are often at the mercy of whatever rules and influence and control techniques the group has adopted.

  A young woman born and raised in the Worldwide Church of God remembers the pressure she felt to control herself and follow the rules:

  I was never allowed to be angry. We weren’t allowed to be angry or fearful or show any kind of fear. I think it gave me some compulsions, you know, and some paranoia. I think it affected my eating in terms of just not knowing: Was I hungry? Am I full? So that is a concern. I did struggle right when I left the group. I had some bulimia and anorexia, and I have been diagnosed with an eating disorder that’s nonspecific at this point, which was their parting gift to me, I guess. You know, emotionally, not being able to feel, just kind of feeling numb. Not really knowing how to be. I mean, everything was very conditional. Acceptance was very conditional, and so if you were to be loved, you had to be a performer—and not just a performer for your immediate family, but a performer for God’s family. So, you know, I wanted to be loved, so I performed well.

  The goal of cultic systems of influence is to change and/or shape human beings at their very core so that they will fully accept the group’s ideology, adulate the leader, and strive for perfection. Once those goals are achieved, compliance and obedience are almost guaranteed.

  How Followers Learn to Entrap Themselves

  When powerful systems of influence are active, people may lose their sense of self, their critical thinking, and their autonomy—and when they do, they can be converted into obedient followers. One of the strange side effects of this process is that converts may begin to believe that they have free will, and that they have intentionally chosen to de-self and obey. They become true believers and lose any real awareness of the influence methods that reshaped and resocialized them—and they come to believe that they willingly accepted this personal transformation to be one of the chosen few. This seems bizarre, but it’s an intrinsic feature of toxic systems of influence and persuasion. And it’s possibly the most difficult feature for someone who hasn’t experienced it to fully understand.

  Sociologist Benjamin Zablocki focuses on the social-psychological pressures that lead to this willing self-delusion in his work on hyper-credulity and hyper-compliance in cultic groups.9 Zablocki explains that cult members learn to erase their critical judgment and wholly accept the beliefs, ideas, and doctrines of the group; members enter into a state of hyper-credulity. Simultaneously, they become strongly attached to and emotionally dependent on the leader and other group members, and cannot bear to be separated from them. This brings about a combined external and internal state in which the idea of leaving the group feels unbearable, and the cult member enters into a state of hyper-compliance. The group becomes
everything, and so it becomes rational to comply with whatever the leader or group demands. If these demands are harsh or abusive, the hyper-credulity aspect will arise to erase critical thinking and justify whatever rationalizations or excuses the leader offers, however farfetched they may seem to us on the outside.

  Social psychological research has consistently upheld the idea that once a person makes a commitment, especially if he or she takes a strong position in front of others, it is likely that he or she will cling to that position (this relates to Cialdini’s concept of consistency, discussed earlier in this chapter). This consistency is more likely to lead to hyper-compliance when people spend money, when their family and friends go along with them, or when they have already invested their time and energy. For children, who have no say about joining these groups, adopting hyper-credulity and hyper-compliance may be ways to please their parents or the leader, or may simply become survival responses.

  Additionally, social psychological research has shown that a similar form of self-deception occurs in situations of internal conflict.10 When people are confronted by the possibility that their cherished thoughts, beliefs, or behaviors are wrong, they may be overtaken by a painful internal state known as cognitive dissonance. The conflict between their ideas or behaviors and stark reality can evoke many difficult feelings, such as stress, anxiety, anger, nausea, shame, fear, or all of these.11 In response to this distressing conflict, people tend to alter and distort their perception of reality in order to relieve their cognitive dissonance—and cultic systems of influence help members achieve this relief. When an adult finds a group that becomes a vital source of hope, or when a child or adolescent has little to no experience of any other kind of environment, they will tend toward rationalizations that cause the least amount of psychological turmoil—and they will often choose the group over their own doubts. Having chosen, their sense of consistency will intensify their commitment to the group. This commitment is in turn intensified by the need to belong, or in some cases, to survive.