It is much easier to ask why people
don’t just leave when they learn what happens behind the scenes in a cult or
cult-like organisation than it is to find acceptable and comprehensible answers.
It is not easy for outsiders to understand the external pressures and
techniques and internal thought processes that keep people inside.
The best sources of answers and
explanations are ex-members. They are the ones with the excruciatingly painful
personal experience of cult life, and some of them may be able to explain what
was going on in their minds and in their lives in terms that ‘civilians’ can
understand.
The deeper in that people go, the worse life often gets but the more difficult it is for them to
get out. I am not talking about people on the fringes and in the outer circles
who may wander in then drift away or drop out: I am talking about long-term,
hard-core members.
I am also mainly
talking about people who might think about leaving, not those few who genuinely
feel at home in their organisation or the large number of unfortunates who have
lost all sense of self and self-preservation.
People
are discouraged and prevented from leaving
The message
given, overtly or covertly, to many cult members is, “Don’t you dare leave, you
traitor. It will be much the worse for you if you do!”
Cults make it difficult for members to leave in as many
practical, guilt and fear-based and emotional blackmailing ways as possible. They
use coercion and intimidation to keep dissenting members in line.
Committed members are sometimes deliberately made into
prisoners and hostages, forced to depend on the organisation for survival. They may be in a state of childlike dependency.
This is from an
ex-member of a religious cult based on Catholicism:
“We
were told if we left the movement our lives would collapse. It was always
pointed out who had left. They were like Judas who betrayed Jesus. We were told
they were dead. Ex members would later leave the church, divorce, need mental
counseling, suffer from depression and their families would turn to drugs or
disintegrate. Fear kept us in for all these years…”
Once
again, this seems familiar. It supports what I have read about other cults and
experienced for myself. One ex-member of a political group told me that members
were warned that they would end up as destitute drug addicts on the streets of
Paris or in the Metro if they left the movement.
In addition to fear of the unknown and the outside world,
there is fear of reprisal from the organisation.
This fear is sometimes justified: ex-members have been attacked and beaten or
even murdered; some have had allegations, some false some true, made against
them and their credibility and prospects destroyed. Their families may be
persecuted too.
Fear is one
factor; surveillance is another. Members may be watched and spied on and
encouraged to report suspicious behaviour and keep each other in line. Each is
a prisoner of the others. They may be permitted to go on the Internet only in
pairs. People may listen in to their phone calls.
Lack of
resources may stop people from escaping too. Their passports may be taken away
and they may not be given any money.
What
else is stopping them?
Lack
of options and coping ability are major factors.
Escaping
is all very well, but what options are there for defectors? Where can the
traitors and apostates go and what will they do? How will they cope with a new
life?
There are many practical and psychological factors and
consequences that need to be considered. What about people who have no family
nearby, no money of their own, no marketable skills and nowhere to go? They may
have lost any entitlement to benefits and pensions. Their prospects are bleak,
especially for older people. Some of them may be worse off in the outside world
than they are inside the cult, and they know this.
Some people, especially those born into it, realise that they may not be able to live away from
the cult; they may not know how to make their
own decisions and live normal lives and work in the normal way among normal
people.
Who
is responsible for creating this lack of resource and coping ability? It is all
done deliberately by the cult leader.
Fear of the light
and fear of the reaction
Perhaps some
members are reluctant to leave because they sense that they would have trouble
dealing with the painful memories and unpleasant realisations that might emerge
once they are free from the time-consuming demands that deliberately keep them
occupied and prevent introspection.
They may be
dimly aware that they will have to admit to their inhumanity and misdeeds and
deal with the results.
Facing up to the
truth can be overwhelming and devastating and put people into an even worse
state than they are already in.
Staying in may
be the lesser of two evils, psychologically speaking.
How and why do
people get away?
After reading the above
reasons, which are anyway just an outline, people who started by wondering why
members just don’t leave may well end up wondering how anyone ever manages to
escape.
Some people do manage
to leave a cult. I am not talking
about interventions by family members or liberation by an army or the police: that is a whole other story, as is the dissolution of a cult after the death of
the founder.
Much depends on options
and opportunities and the cult in question.
One ex-member said that one way of escape is to become ill and
unable to work. They let you go or throw you out because you are a liability and
they have no further use for you. His bad back got him out. The cult may let
people go back to their families if expensive operations are needed and after
experiencing normal life, the members may decide not to go back.
Some cults will lose interest in people who can no longer give
them any money.
Some people get expelled when they start to rebel against the
rules and question the ideology. Rather than try to convert or break them, the leaders
will want to get rid of these troublemakers.
Some get out when life gets so bad that ‘anything must be better
than this’ or they can no longer bear to commit crimes in the name of their
cause.
Some are encouraged to leave when they see
others doing it successfully and learn of resources and support groups.
Some members may get angry because of the way things are run: they
think they should be the leaders. They may even leave to set up cults of their
own!
