After producing some articles about cult
members, I now have a few things to say about cult leaders.
The godlike cult leader
No matter what type or size of cult is being
investigated, religious, political, lifestyle or other, it will have many
features in common with other cults.
Similarly, the leader will have attributes in
common with most other cult leaders, no matter what their nationality or
ideology is.
The most significant of these is the messiah
complex.
Only they can save us all; they must be
worshipped and obeyed without question. They expect to be treated with respect
and even reverence as great spiritual masters, heroes who are going to save the
world or model examples of what highly-evolved people should be, depending on
what sort of cult they are leaders of.
They may claim a direct connection to and do
everything using the authority of some god.
These key features, which are found in many
cults, are of particular interest here. They appear in many sources of
information, often with different phrasing:
Veneration of the Leader: Excessive
glorification to the point of virtual sainthood or divinity.
Inerrancy of the Leader: Belief that he or
she cannot be wrong.
Omniscience of the Leader: Acceptance of
beliefs and pronouncements on virtually all subjects, from the philosophical to
the trivial.
I can confirm all this from personal
experience. The pronouncements of the cult leaders I know most about were
interpreted as divine and the sources infallible. The leaders were considered
to be the sole authority on everything. One of them, although not a Christian,
compared himself with Jesus.
How can the members disobey the commandments
of such leaders, speak out against them or question the truth of what their
godlike gurus tell them? That would be sacrilege, blasphemy and heresy. It would
result in divine retribution!
Gods and leaders
Some disambiguation and clarification may be
needed here. Cult leaders with a god complex are not to be confused with the leader
types who are known by a Greek god’s name in Charles Handy’s book The Gods of
Management, where he calls them Zeusians.
It is important to understand that some
people are natural leaders. I have seen it estimated that 5% of people are born
with leadership qualities.
Many people need leaders; leaders need
followers; the associated groups, businesses and causes benefit from having
strong leadership. Perhaps this is man’s natural state, tribal living and all
that.
Those of us who are what Handy calls
Dionysians, (not an appropriate name in my opinion), i.e. independent and
neither leaders nor followers, may take a dim view of such setups because we can’t
tolerate them, but we are a minority.
A leader may be in total command of many
people and give orders like Zeus, but this does not make him a cult leader or
mean that he has a messiah complex!
Some leaders are tyrants and some are
psychopaths, but this does not necessarily make them cult leaders either.
It all depends on how many cult-related boxes
they tick.
Diamond or glass?
Cult leaders all have their human side, and
in many cases they are the exact opposite of what they appear to be and say
they are. An assumption of great superiority may be a cover for great inferiority.
They may be vampires and whited sepulchres;
they may have ruined many peoples’ lives.
Their gifts and charisma may come from
something that is using them to lure people into a trap and lead them to
destruction.
Developing critical thinking skills and
knowing what to look for can help us to tell the difference between diamonds
(very rare indeed) and glass (very common).
There are checklists that we can go through
to help us decide what sort of person - and organisation - we are dealing with.
We can learn from other people’s experience too.
Anyone who says and does exactly the same
things as known cult leaders and has a bad effect on the followers is very
likely to be a cult leader too.
I now assume that they are all guilty until
proven innocent.
Sometimes the whole world seems like one big cult, with
everyone in it except for me!
