Steven Hassan's best-selling book Combating Cult Mind Control, which is described as a 'Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults', is a good starting point for people who want to learn something about cults. First published in 1988, it is still very relevant.
This book contains a lot of useful - not to mention depressing, disturbing, sinister and chilling - information and covers many cult-related topics.
Steven, aka Steve, Hassan is American; he is a former high-level member of the Unification Church or 'Moonies'. Much of what he says about this cult and his life inside it has a much wider application.
This article covers a few points of particular interest that Steve Hassan makes in connection with joining cults.
He says for example that the Moonies justify the use of deception to recruit new members. So do many if not most cult-like organisations. Misleading people, luring them somewhere under false pretences and downright brazen lying are common practices; some examples can be found in this article.
Steven Hassan makes a very good point here:
“It is important to remember that for the most part, people don't join cults. Culls recruit people.“
This is very true in the majority of cases. Most people who join cults do so only because they were approached and manipulated by unscrupulous members with recruitment targets to meet: they would not have sought out and joined the cult of their own inclination and free will.
Some cults however are very exclusive, at least in the early stages of their existence. They prefer quality to quantity and try to attract rather than target people. They make it difficult to join and they let the would-be members make all the running and prove themselves worthy. Of course, this could be a clever recruitment technique!
Steven Hassan tells us that he was taught to size up potential recruits, classify them as feelers, doers, thinkers or believers and adapt his approach accordingly. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Adolf Hitler did something similar: he adapted his manner and speeches according to his audience.
Feelers want love and acceptance and a community; they respond well to a kind and caring approach and something that is often described as 'love-bombing'. Doers are action-oriented and respond to the offer of opportunities to make a positive difference to the world. Thinkers respond to an intellectual approach and the offer of philosophical discussions. Believers are seeking spiritual meaning. They practically recruit themselves. Joyce Collin-Smith for example spent 50 years looking for a spiritual master; she sounds like a believer.
Steven Hassan goes on to say that the majority of the people recruited by the Moonies were feelers and doers, They tended to remain at the lower levels, while the few thinkers who joined eventually became leaders within the organisation.
What he says about the types and techniques makes sense; it explains a lot.
A poster on the now defunct Conservative Conspiracy Forum said that people join cults because they are in pain. I replied that this was not always the case:
“...the only personal experience I have is of a political cult. Many of the people who joined were not in pain, they were very idealistic and wanted to overthrow an oppressive regime and bring democracy to their country.”
What the other poster said probably applies to many feeling types; I was talking about doers who wanted to work for a good cause and take action to bring about major governmental changes. However, many friends and family members of the political people had been imprisoned and executed so pain could well have been an additional factor.
Steven Hassan says that the majority of people who are recruited into destructive cults were approached at a vulnerable time in their lives. It is easy to take advantage of overloaded, overwhelmed people who are suffering severe stress for one reason or another and are not in their right mind or a healthy state.
One of the examples that he gives involves someone who met a cult member at a very bad time in his life:
“Gary...was at a low point in his life when he met Ann. 'I was burned out from four years of chiropractic college, my best friend was killed in a car accident, my siblings were pressuring me to go home and take care of my mother who was ill—I was a sitting duck for anything that promised the keys to solving life's problems.'"
There is independent confirmation of this point on the old forum. Someone who was concerned about a friend who had joined a Catholicism-based religious cult said that her friend's father had committed suicide when she was away at school. I posted some information I found about a girl in the Netherlands who joined the same cult when her beloved father died and someone who became involved with the Hare Krishnas after his twin brother was killed in a car accident. I said:
“The ability to judge, reason and make good decisions is often impaired in grieving, bereaved people and they can be taken advantage of in many ways.”
This applies not only to bereavement but also to many other kinds of pain. Distress signals really do attract predators.
