Why do people join cults?

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helenbacque

Senior Member
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Bewitched by a charismatic leader? Or a personal need to be subjective to another? Or seduced by the promise of a better life? Or something else? What makes a person susceptible?

I've recently watched documentaries about David Koresh (Wako) and Jim Jones (Jonestown) and remember smaller ones such as Heaven's Gate.

Have you ever been tempted?
 

helenbacque said:
Bewitched by a charismatic leader? Or a personal need to be subjective to another? Or seduced by the promise of a better life? Or something else? What makes a person susceptible?

I've recently watched documentaries about David Koresh (Wako) and Jim Jones (Jonestown) and remember smaller ones such as Heaven's Gate.

Have you ever been tempted?
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There is a more insidious cult that is poisoning the hearts and minds of millions of consumers of opinion driven media. Yes, it's the same, unthinking, unquestioning...
 
helenbacque said:
Bewitched by a charismatic leader? Or a personal need to be subjective to another? Or seduced by the promise of a better life? Or something else? What makes a person susceptible?
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IMO cult leaders don't differ much from popular religious leaders.
Popular religious leaders are charismatic & do promise a better life or at least a better afterlife that is based on faith that there will be an afterlife.

I should be questioning when & how does a cult become a religion. I think that at one time Morman's would have been considered a cult.

https://www.etinside.com/top-15-richest-pastors-america-promise-1-will-shock/
 
In 1977, I was working for Air Wisconsin. There was a pilot that always seemed to me to be a bit off, if you know what I mean. After I hadn’t seen him for a few weeks, I asked about him and was told that he quit to move to California. When Jim Jones held his suicide massacre party in 1978, another employee brought the newspaper in to work to show that a person with the same name died at Guyana. We just didn’t know if it was the same person.

The Vice President in Appleton, Wisconsin (Air Wisconsin headquarters) became interested in the story and did some digging through a police detective that he knew. It took him a few weeks, but he did find out that it was the one in the same person. Going by that, I think maybe at least some people who join cults are both a little off and also are very impressionable.
 
Knight said:
I think that at one time Morman's would have been considered a cult
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Lehi is a prophet in Jerusalem. God warns Lehi in a dream to take his family and leave Jerusalem because the city will be destroyed. He and his family cross the ocean to the Americas..............After Jesus is resurrected, He appears to the people in the Americas. He teaches them about baptism and forgiveness. He heals their sick and blesses their children. He establishes His Church. Unlike those in Jerusalem, the people listen to Jesus. Afterwards, they live in peace for hundreds of years.............Over time, the people lose faith and war breaks out again, wiping out the Nephites. The Lamanites, who survived, are “among the ancestors of the American Indians” "
Knight said:
I think that at one time Mormans would have been considered a cult
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Ya think? What a stretch.
 
hollydolly said:
I think perhaps people join cult type groups, because they need someone else to make decisions for them.. and to have all their peers believe in the same things they do... perhaps low self esteem..
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I pretty much agree.

Cults are somewhat in the eye of the beholder.
Knight said:
at one time Mormon's would have been considered a cult.
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Yep, and some still believe they are. I don't, not now anyway. I believe the modern Mormon church is pretty much mainstream.
Sassycakes said:
Is Scientology a Cult ?
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I think so, seems to me to pretty well fit the definition...
 
In college, some friends tried to get me to join a religious group. I attended a couple meetings, then they wanted to isolate me. They tried to talk me into moving in with them. I was beginning to get anxious. I did some research and realized it was a cult. My mom, God bless her, was on top of things and sensed something was wrong and got the truth out of me. I was only 19. I think college is a breeding ground for that kind of stuff. I really do.
 
I think we are gullible by nature, some more than others. Early humans had to trust each other in order to survive. We can be led to believe the most ridiculous things if it is something we want to believe. Scapegoats are always an easy sell. "It's those darn (fill in people of choice) who are causing all our problems."

Arthur Conan Doyle was extremely intelligent as evidenced by his Sherlock Holmes stories. Yet he truly believed in fairies based on some obviously fake photos. P. T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute." Look around and you can see he was right.

I suspect civilization might collapse if we didn't have some measure of trust in others. On the other hand, it may collapse anyway due to widespread gullibility.
 
Cult life would definitely not be for me. I like my privacy and independence too much. I think people who join cults are trying to fill voids in their lives; to feel wanted and cared for by others. Maybe they think they'll be closer to and incur the favor of God. I'm sure charismatic cult leaders promise at least a couple of those things to some degree.
 
palides2021 said:
In college, some friends tried to get me to join a religious group.
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Had a similar experience in college, it was in Utah and the group was a fringe Christian thing with a lot of anti-Mormon talk. A pretty girl got me there, it was hard but I managed to get up and walk out of the first meeting I went to. Never saw her again...
 
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helenbacque said:
Bewitched by a charismatic leader? Or a personal need to be subjective to another? Or seduced by the promise of a better life? Or something else? What makes a person susceptible?

I've recently watched documentaries about David Koresh (Wako) and Jim Jones (Jonestown) and remember smaller ones such as Heaven's Gate.

Have you ever been tempted?
Click to expand...
I'm sure that cults, like other organized groups, offer a feeling of solidarity. They validate your belief system, too often after convincing you what to believe. "If you want to belong, you have to believe as we do."

At one point in time, I gave thought to communal living (as in a self-supporting artist community).

I could never blindly follow a leader or someone else's dictates, however. I don't need someone else doing my thinking or making my judgement calls. I am too skeptical to accept brain-washing. And radicals of any ilk are a major turn-off for me.

My tag-line (?) on this site is: "Free thought is the greatest freedom of all." I truly believe that.
 
I think maybe it's a thrill to get caught up in something that's a little bit weird or kinky. It's an expression of, "Look at me. I'm different, along with these other people who I'm just like." I have a hard time believing these people actually believe what they are doing deep down. Maybe they do, but I don't really care either way.
 

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