(To go back and forth between the questions and the answers for Alcoholics Anonymous, click on the numbers of the questions and answers.)

81. Hypocrisy

Cult members, including the leader, project their own sins and crimes onto people outside of the cult:

• "They are dishonest."
• "They are unspiritual."
• "They have a hidden agenda."
• "They are narrow-minded and intolerant."
• "They are a bunch of bigots."
• "They don't care about the future of the world."
• "They are incompetent."
• "They are trying to eliminate the competition."
• "They are only in it for the money."
• "They have an evil leader."
• "They are immoral."
• "They are ambitious and greedy."
• "They are not doing the Will of God."
• "They are not real Christians."
• "They do not have a reasonable interpretation of the Bible."
• "They lie."
• "They are in denial."
• "They have strange, illogical beliefs."
• "They are acting crazy."
• "Their lives don't make any sense."
• "They are hypocritical."
• And above all: "We are not a cult — all of those other groups are. We work very hard to make sure that our group doesn't turn into a cult like them."

82. Denial of the truth. Reversal of reality. Rationalization and Denial.

A cult is an assemblage of people who don't want to know the truth. They often claim that they do; they may talk about "Seeking the Truth", or "Seeking to Understand the Word of the Lord", or even "having the Truth", but they actually do not want to hear the truth. They just want their own beliefs and superstitions confirmed.

Cults:

• reject the truth,
• deny the truth,
• won't hear the truth,
• don't tell the truth,
• ignore the truth,
• dislike the truth,
• abhor the truth,
• avoid honest, intelligent discussions of the truth,
• and even lie about telling the truth.

NIDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, declares in an article on treating drug addiction:
"Importantly, addiction causes distortions in thinking such as denial, minimization, and projection."

The funny thing is, so does membership in a cult, even a "recovery" cult.

Cults are quick to deny the truth whenever they are the subject of valid criticism. Deborah (Linda Berg) Davis, the daughter of cult leader David Berg and authoress of "The Children of God: The Inside Story", gave us a good example of such denial and reversal of reality. She talked about the time that Bob Rogers, a news producer for the NBC television network, wanted to expose the extremely loose sexual practices of The Children of God (COG) cult, which included "Flirty Fishing" prostitution to get the cult more money and members:

When asked if there was immorality going on within the COG, Hosea [David Berg's son and Deborah's brother] flatly denied it. Rogers countered Hosea's statements with interviews he had filmed in America of female ex-members who gave eyewitness accounts. The stark contrast between Hosea's denial and the witnesses' testimony was incredible. But why would Hosea lie? To him it was not lying. All cult members are taught instinctively to lie; the COG is not unlike other cults in that matter. One is taught that it is okay to "cover" the truth because "other people wouldn't understand our beliefs." Therefore, when Mr. Rogers asked Hosea about immorality, Hosea flatly denied it. Hosea did not believe it was "immorality." Hosea's thoughts: "To the public it may appear as immorality, but to us it is the freedom of God's spirit, which they know nothing of."
      The final documentary for "Chronolog" showed Hosea to be an outright, bold-faced liar. And he was.
The Children of God; The Inside Story, Deborah (Linda Berg) Davis, page 113.

Synanon gave us a good example of the reversal of reality: the cult-owned businesses had the Synanon members working 12 to 16 hours per day, seven days a week, for wages that ranged from $2 to $25 per week, while the cult leader Chuck Dederich, who lived in idle luxury at their expense, complained that he had to support all of their lazy asses.¹

The ideals publicly espoused by the cult are often the exact opposite of the real practices of the cult in private. For example, Daniel Shaw wrote of his experiences in SYDA — "Siddha Yoga", the cult of Swami Muktananda:

Social workers are taught early ... the clients' right to self-determination, respect and dignity for all, the innate worth of a human being, respect for uniqueness, and the facilitation of the realization of potential.
      Religious cults are skillful in advertising the promotion of these values as the core of their philosophy.   ... The bait of these messages is used to attract members.
      Once membership is established, the messages are switched to ever-increasing demands for obedience, submission and dependence. The actual value system of a cult is often the antithesis of the system it advertises.
Traumatic Abuse in Cults; An Exploration of an Unfamiliar Social Problem, Daniel Shaw, CSW.

83. Seeing Through Tinted Lenses

Like someone who sees the world through rose-colored glasses, cult members see everything through the filter of the cult's viewpoint. Jesus freaks judge people on the basis of whether they are seekers, trying to get closer to the Lord. Communists see everything in terms of economics and class struggle. Recovery cults judge people on the basis of their drug and alcohol consumption or abstention. Most all cults judge people on how well they parrot the cult's favorite dogma and slogans.

After Patty Hearst, the daughter of the Hearst Publishing heir, William Randolph Hearst III, was kidnapped, tortured, and brain-washed by the terrorist Symbionese Liberation Army, she saw her own father as just another rich Capitalist creep who had never cared about the poor people. She saw everything in terms of a revolutionary class struggle, and then she acted on those beliefs, and went out and robbed banks to get the SLA more guns and money.

Similarly, the Moonies see everything in terms of Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church fighting against Satan, to reclaim the world for God.

Scientologists see everything in terms of mental malfunctions — they consider anyone who isn't performing up to their standards to be brain-damaged and insane (and in need of expensive Scientology therapy to restore their full potentiality). And if you dare to criticize Scientology, they see that as proof that you are mentally defective, and an "unethical" Suppressive Person, too.

84. You can't make it without the cult.

• Many cults use the Heaven's Gate rap: "You can't get into Heaven without us. Only our group is going to Heaven."
• The Jehovah's Witnesses believe that only 144,000 people — all of them Witnesses — are going to get into Heaven. Members of other religions just won't make the cut.
• Many cults say: "You can't achieve purity, spirituality, or salvation without our group or church."
• Or, "You won't be taken up in The Rapture if you don't belong to our church."
• Or, "You won't survive Armageddon if you aren't in our group."
• Or, "You will never learn the Secrets of the Universe without our Master."
• Or, "You won't be able to attain mental clarity without our meditation, or our chanting program."
• Or, "You won't ever be able to become a 'Clear' or an 'Operating Thetan' without $100,000 worth of Scientology 'auditing'."
• Or, "You won't be able to defeat the Devil without our help."
• Or, "You won't be able to achieve sanity without our psychotherapy."
• Or, "You won't be able to stay clean and sober without us."
  
• Or whatever...

85. Enemy-making and Devaluing the Outsider

This is the other side of the coin, "We are special". Cult members love other cult members, just because they are fellow cult members, and hate critics of the cult.

A council of the Church of England wrote:

        Freud has noticed another very important principle in the nature of the love energies in the crowd. In a very significant saying he suggests that in any crowd hate tends to heap up round the circumference. The love energies are focussed inward within the group itself; the forces of hatred are focussed outward toward those who do not belong to the group. We do not necessarily mean by this hatred in the ordinary literal sense; we can however notice this trait in an attitude of exclusiveness in the close-knit group towards those beyond its ranks. Religious groups of many kinds adopt the attitude towards those outside their ranks: "Either you are all out with us, or you are the outcast, the sinner, the person needing conversion, the person with whom we can have no co-operation, unless and until you change and become one of us." The closer the emotional bond within the group, the more this attitude of exclusiveness and non-co-operation develop toward other rival groups.
Moral Re-Armament: A study of the movement; Prepared by the Social and Industrial Council of the Church Assembly, C.A.1129, Church of England, National Assembly, Social and Industrial Council, 1955, pages 24-25.

Those who oppose the cult's program are labeled The Enemies Of The Good.
An "Us Versus Them" mindset pervades the cult.
There is always a difference, usually aggrieved, between "us" and "them".

• "They" don't understand.
• "They" don't know.
• "They" don't have our guru's revelations.
• "They" don't have our doctrines or our wisdom.
• "They" don't have our knowledge, science, or technology.
• "They" don't know what they are talking about.
• "They" have bad motives.
• "They" are not on God's side.
• "They" are all against us.
• "They" are unfair to us.
• "They" tell lies about us.
• "They" have robbed us and cheated us.
• "They" have hurt us and done all kinds of terrible things to us.
• "They" have ulterior motives.
• "They" are opposed to our good works.
• "They" have a hidden agenda.
• "They" are trying to poison people's minds with lies about us and turn people against us.
• "They" have always been trying to stop us from doing good things.
• "They" are evil.
• "They" are on Satan's side.

Those who leave a cult usually immediately become enemies and scapegoats and ostracised pariahs, and contact with them is usually forbidden. Defectors from the cult are viewed as very dangerous enemies because they may encourage more members to leave (by saying true and sensible things about the cult). Those who quit the cult become the ultimate outsiders.

A corollary to Devaluing the Outsider is the demonization of critics and opponents of the cult, and the rationalization of attacks on the cult's enemies. Allegedly, "they" are such terrible people that it is okay to do bad things to them.
"After all, they did it to us first, didn't they?"
Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler actually rationalized the mass murder of the Jews on the grounds that "the Jews" had attacked Germany first.

Scientology says that it is okay to attack those who oppose Scientology. Scientology declares that enemies of Scientology are "fair game", and that it is "ethical" to commit "overts" against them and "violate their dynamics". In practice this has led to everything from malicious litigation intended to bankrupt the target, to framing Paulette Cooper for making bomb threats, to burglarizing U.S. Government offices and stealing thousands of government files on people who criticized Scientology or who might do so in the future.

Another important corollary to Devaluing the Outsider is the devaluation of any information that comes from people outside of the cult. Cult members often refuse to listen to or even consider any independent sources of information that criticize the cult or its leader or its doctrines or practices. The information is automatically considered invalid just because it comes from someone outside of the cult.

86. The cult wants to own you.

The cult wants your life. Some cults want all of your money; some want all of your time; most all of them want all of your heart, mind, and soul.

One of the most obvious and visible problems here is "too many meetings". They want to occupy too much of your spare time — like all of it. They have meetings, and then they have classes or "Bible study" or "training", and perhaps also lots of prayer sessions or chanting or meditation sessions, and then they have assemblies and conventions, and then some more meetings, in an endless cycle. And somewhere in the midst of all of that you are also supposed to go out recruiting and/or fund-raising.

The cult also wants to control you. First, they want to control all of your time, and then they will try to control more and more parts of your life: your sex life, your diet, your choice of reading materials, your choice of jobs, your consumption of drugs and alcohol (both legal and illegal), and sometimes even what doctor-prescribed medications you may take.

87. Channelling or other occult, unchallengeable, sources of information.

The cult teaches that members should meditate or pray or hold séances in order to receive messages, information, and teachings from The Beyond, or from a higher plane, or from an Ascended Master, or even from Jesus Christ or God.

A corollary to this is that the cult claims that only it and its practices can give you access that Higher Reality.

Another corollary is that the Guru and his inner circle are allegedly far better at making contact with "The Beyond" than you are. They can more clearly communicate with "The Higher Planes", or "The Ascended Masters" (or whatever) than you can, because they have supposedly purified the Doors of Perception, and you haven't. So, whenever their received messages differ from yours, they are always right and you are always wrong.

Channelled information creates a closed system that is entirely self-referential. You can't argue with an Angel, or an Ascended Master, or a Saintly Spirit who isn't there. All criticism can be deflected by saying that you aren't pure enough, and you haven't done the exercises or practices long enough to have the visions, or hear the voices, and learn the "Cosmic Truths" for yourself.

See the web page on The Heresy of the 12 Steps for a longer discussion of channelling.

88. They Make You Dependent On The Group.

They make you dependent on the group, financially, emotionally, or socially (or in all of those ways).

• They tell you that you cannot make any major life decisions without their approval.
• Or, they take all of your money, and your checkbook and credit cards. That makes you financially dependent on the cult for food, clothing, medical care, everything, and makes leaving very difficult because you have no personal resources at all remaining.
• Or, they tell you that you cannot live outside of the group.
• Or, they teach you that you are not capable of managing your own life without their guidance.
• Or, they teach you that you cannot get to Heaven without their religion, or their Master, or their teachings.
• And they tell you that you cannot think for yourself.

Cults often encourage their members to regress psychologically — to return to childhood dependency on parents and unthinking obedience and childlike gullibility. Many cults call the leader "Father", and the leader calls his followers "my children".

Cults also make people dependent on the group by taking away all external means of support. Cults routinely confiscate members' bank accounts, credit cards, and any other assets which members may have, thus making leaving the cult very difficult. Often, members are pressured into quitting outside jobs, and just working for the cult (for very low wages, or for no wages at all). The members become dependent on the cult for everything from food and clothing to medical care. Often, the cult then gives members an allowance that is so small that members simply cannot afford to leave — they don't have enough money for a bus ticket or a motel room.

Scientology teaches people that they are basically insane — having been driven insane by memories of past injuries — and that only by getting a lot of expensive Scientology-style psychotherapy can people be restored to sanity.

The Moonies teach people that they have been defeated by Satan and his Evil Ways, and that only the Unification Church can save them from the Devil.

Frank Buchman's Oxford Group cult taught people that they had all been "defeated by sin", and that their thinking was corrupted by sin, and that only Buchman's religion could "restore people to sanity".

89. Demands For Compliance With The Group

This item is pretty obvious. It is in the nature of cults to demand conformity and obedience, and to suppress dissent or independent thinking. And they are pretty extreme about it.

The early Mormon church demanded "Perfect Obedience" — meaning that the believers were expected to obey all orders from their Bishops and higher leaders without question, no matter how extreme the orders were. That even went as far as practicing polygamy on orders from above, and killing hundreds of innocent men, women, and children at Mountain Meadows, on orders.

Many other cults make the same demands for total obedience.

Most cults demand the usual list of things:

1. You must revere the leader.
2. You can't ever leave.
3. You must obey all of the rules.
4. You may not criticize the group or its leader or its beliefs, doctrines, policies, or dogma.
5. You must agree that the cult is right about everything.

And of course cults have some means or other to enforce compliance:

• Cults often start off with simple public criticism of nonconformists and other rule breakers.

• Synanon evolved a system of "contracts" where people were sentenced to any punishment that the group declared.

• And Scientology actually ran fortified and armed prison camps at Gillman Hot Springs and Hemet, California, where unfortunate Scientologists were imprisoned and tortured (given R.P.F. — Rehabilitation Project Force).

• Some cults, like Jim Jones' People's Temple resorted to public beatings and whippings, even for the smallest of offenses. And of course they are infamous for shooting those who tried to leave.

• And the Synanon goon squad, "The Imperial Marines" degenerated into beating people too, as well as trying to kill splitters and a lawyer, Paul Marantz, who was suing them for it.

See the item A System of Rewards and Punishments for more on the subject.

90. Newcomers Need Fixing.

The cult claims that newcomers are flawed and in need of repair or rebuilding by the cult.

• Many cults claim that the newcomers aren't religious enough, or don't pray enough, or aren't devoted to the Lord enough, or haven't been reborn, or haven't been cleansed of sin...

• Other cults claim that newcomers need to fix their minds and bodies by chanting, meditation, yoga, or a new diet (or by all of them).

  The founder-leader of the Hari Krishna cult (ISKCON) declared:

  Chanting Hare Krsna is the easiest process by which to become purified, especially in this age, when people are so dull that they cannot easily understand spiritual knowledge. If one chants Hare Krsna, then his intelligence become purified, and he can understand spiritual things.
  The Science of Self-Realization, "His Divine Grace" A. C. Swami Prabhupada, page 30.

  That of course also smacks of Newcomers can't think right and Trance-Inducing Practices

• Scientology claims that its newcomers are mentally injured — basically, insane — and in need of much expensive Scientology-style psychotherapy — "auditing" — to fix their minds.

• In Amway, you need fixing because you aren't a millionaire. You are allegedly infected with all kinds of bad attitudes and beliefs that keep you from succeeding in life, but if you become the abject faithful slave of your sponsor, he will teach you how to become a big success just like his upline Diamond is.

• In recovery cults, this item is self-evident. The whole premise of recovery cults is that you need fixing — that you need the group to control you and make you quit doing something, like drinking or drugging too much, or eating too much, or having a "wrong attitude" about your childhood or your spouse, or something.

Note that the claim that newcomers need fixing automatically places the old-timers in a position superior to the newcomers — the old-timers have been fixed, but the newcomers haven't. So the old-timers are inherently in a position where it is easy to control and command the newcomers, ostensibly because the old-timers have been healed, repaired, purified, or enlightened, and know "The Great Truth", while the newcomers do not.

Footnotes:

1) See: William F. Olin, Escape From Utopia, for a very good, revealing story about the Synanon "recovery" cult.

2) Richard Mathison, God Is A Millionaire, page 146.

• 1. The Guru is always right.
• 2. You are always wrong.
• 3. No Exit.
• 4. No Graduates.
• 5. Cult-speak.
• 6. Group-think, Suppression of Dissent, and Enforced Conformity in Thinking
• 7. Irrationality.
• 8. Suspension of disbelief.
• 9. Denigration of competing sects, cults, religions...
• 10. Personal attacks on critics.
• 11. Insistence that the cult is THE ONLY WAY.
• 12. The cult and its members are special.
• 13. Induction of guilt, and the use of guilt to manipulate cult members.
• 14. Unquestionable Dogma, Sacred Science, and Infallible Ideology.
• 15. Indoctrination of members.
• 16. Appeals to "holy" or "wise" authorities.
• 17. Instant Community.
• 18. Instant Intimacy.
• 19. Surrender To The Cult.
• 20. Giggly wonderfulness and starry-eyed faith.
• 21. Personal testimonies of earlier converts.
• 22. The cult is self-absorbed.
• 23. Dual Purposes, Hidden Agendas, and Ulterior Motives.
• 24. Aggressive Recruiting.
• 25. Deceptive Recruiting.
• 26. No Humor.
• 27. You Can't Tell The Truth.
• 28. Cloning — You become a clone of the cult leader or other elder cult members.
• 29. You must change your beliefs to conform to the group's beliefs.
• 30. The End Justifies The Means.
• 31. Dishonesty, Deceit, Denial, Falsification, and Rewriting History.
• 32. Different Levels of Truth.
• 33. Newcomers can't think right.
• 34. The Cult Implants Phobias.
• 35. The Cult is Money-Grubbing.
• 36. Confession Sessions.
• 37. A System of Punishments and Rewards.
• 38. An Impossible Superhuman Model of Perfection.
• 39. Mentoring.
• 40. Intrusiveness.
• 41. Disturbed Guru, Mentally Ill Leader.
• 42. Disturbed Members, Mentally Ill Followers.
• 43. Create a sense of powerlessness, covert fear, guilt, and dependency.
• 44. Dispensed existence
• 45. Ideology Over Experience, Observation, and Logic
• 46. Keep them unaware that there is an agenda to change them
• 47. Thought-Stopping Language. Thought-terminating clichés and slogans.
• 48. Mystical Manipulation
• 49. The guru or the group demands ultra-loyalty and total committment.
• 50. Demands for Total Faith and Total Trust
• 51. Members Get No Respect. They Get Abused.
• 52. Inconsistency. Contradictory Messages
• 53. Hierarchical, Authoritarian Power Structure, and Social Castes
• 54. Front groups, masquerading recruiters, hidden promoters, and disguised propagandists
• 55. Belief equals truth
• 56. Use of double-binds
• 57. The cult leader is not held accountable for his actions.
• 58. Everybody else needs the guru to boss him around, but nobody bosses the guru around.
• 59. The guru criticizes everybody else, but nobody criticizes the guru.
• 60. Dispensed truth and social definition of reality
• 61. The Guru Is Extra-Special.
• 62. Flexible, shifting morality
• 63. Separatism
• 64. Inability to tolerate criticism
• 65. A Charismatic Leader
• 66. Calls to Obliterate Self
• 67. Don't Trust Your Own Mind.
• 68. Don't Feel Your Own Feelings.
• 69. The cult takes over the individual's decision-making process.
• 70. You Owe The Group.
• 71. We Have The Panacea.
• 72. Progressive Indoctrination and Progressive Commitments
• 73. Magical, Mystical, Unexplainable Workings
• 74. Trance-Inducing Practices
• 75. New Identity — Redefinition of Self — Revision of Personal History
• 76. Membership Rivalry
• 77. True Believers
• 78. Scapegoating and Excommunication
• 79. Promised Powers or Knowledge
• 80. It's a con. You don't get the promised goodies.
• 81. Hypocrisy
• 82. Denial of the truth. Reversal of reality. Rationalization and Denial.
• 83. Seeing Through Tinted Lenses
• 84. You can't make it without the cult.
• 85. Enemy-making and Devaluing the Outsider
• 86. The cult wants to own you.
• 87. Channelling or other occult, unchallengeable, sources of information.
• 88. They Make You Dependent On The Group.
• 89. Demands For Compliance With The Group
• 90. Newcomers Need Fixing.
• 91. Use of the Cognitive Dissonance Technique.
• 92. Grandiose existence. Bombastic, Grandiose Claims.
• 93. Black And White Thinking
• 94. The use of heavy-duty mind control and rapid conversion techniques.
• 95. Threats of bodily harm or death to someone who leaves the cult.
• 96. Threats of bodily harm or death to someone who criticizes the cult.
• 97. Appropriation of all of the members' worldly wealth.
• 98. Making cult members work long hours for free.
• 99. Total immersion and total isolation.
• 100. Mass suicide.
• Bibliography

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