(My authority: born & raised in a very cultlike church of only 20-ish attendees, a lot of research attending the departure from that church)



a person i follow reblogged a post today to respond to the OP’s open question: were they vulnerable to being sucked into a cult? and I wrote up this longass response to send to OP but then felt it was .. well. long. so I’m making it into a separate post instead of flooding a stranger with words they didn’t ask for.

tl;dr:

Q: are you vulnerable to being sucked into a cult or cultlike community?

A: IMO: almost definitely yes. (we all are.)

cults and cultlike communities suck in vulnerable people looking for safety, camaraderie/a social circle, a meaning for their life, an explanation for their trauma, etc etc by promising to provide the thing they’re looking for.

the insidious thing is that cults actually do provide the intangible desired thing, usually. Friends? a cult is a ready-made social circle. a meaning to life? cults certainly will give you a purpose for living. A reason for your trauma? A cult will tell you who to blame for everything wrong with your life. Safety? well - they’ll convince you that everyone outside the cult is your enemy/untrustworthy down the line, but the good news is you’ll feel safe in your cult space.

Once a cult inducts somebody by filling their emotional or social need, what entangles members isn’t usually an instant, deep loyalty to The Cause or The Leader or whatever. It’s community and the sense of belonging it engenders.

With increasing quickness, the cult community creates the sense of being a member of the ‘in’ group. you and your cult friends are In the Know. people outside your group are ignorant of the truth. And because of this, it doesn’t take long for a new person to feel that they can’t have true friendship with people outside of the cult. they can never be fully honest with them (unless they’re interested in joining).

outside friendships fall away. now you have no meaningful social circle outside the cult, putting you into a social echo chamber of people who all believe the exact same things and raising the stakes of leaving the cult. where would you go? you have no other real friends.

At this point a person is pretty well ‘in’. if it’s a true cult, this is where your investment level means you’re ready to have your loyalty tested: are you willing to take the (economic/social/physical/faith) leap the cult is asking you to take, or will you turn back, be abandoned by everyone you care about*, and left alone and friendless?

(*because as you already know, people In the Know can’t really be friends with people who choose to not be In the Know. they’ll be forced to abandon you.)

basically: the choice about your willingness to bend to authority isn’t asked until the deck is heavily stacked against you. all your chips are on the table. you’ve invested almost everything. will you invest the last bit you’ve got? and if you decide ‘yes’ - which many people do, because where else can they go? - escape becomes nigh impossible.

the only sure(-ish) defense against getting sucked into a cult is satisfaction with your life: having self-assurance about your purpose, your choices, and your social circle, plus a sense of good health and economic security. hardly anyone has all these things at once.



because of this, it’s my opinion that literally everyone on Earth is susceptible to getting sucked into a cult. almost everyone has some emotional weakness, something that makes them feel inadequate or afraid: if a cult happens to hit on that Achilles heel, you’re vulnerable to them. and frankly: if you get sucked into a cult, it’s not your fault. cults are designed to recruit.





regarding cultlike communities specifically:

there are ‘cults’ that aren’t actually cults, just similar to them. true cults glorify and enrich a person, the leader; cultlike groups usually glorify an ideology.

the major commonality between cults and cultlike groups is that both demand/strongly encourage your loyalty above anything else: above your happiness, above existing friendships/social ties, and above human respect or decency towards others, particularly outsiders.

cultlike groups are more common than cults. they’re easier to escape in a strict sense b/c usually there’s no leader controlling the strings, sucking every dollar and moment of your life out of you, but the social investment can get very high and create high stakes to leaving the community anyway:

having been so utterly radicalized by the echo chamber of the cultlike group, their understanding of the world is alien to non-members; it takes a while to deprogram.

people who leave these groups can be sure of being vilified by their old friends & probably harassed, and

they frequently have few friends outside the group to support their departure.



big, well-known examples of cultlike-but-not-strictly-a-cult groups include Radfems/TERFs/SWERFs, Christian Dominionism, & each individual alt-right white supremacist organization.

(the fandom cultlike baby of radfems and dominionism is anti-shipping/kink/’fujoshi’/nsfw, combining purity culture & swerf politics. the aphobic cultlike baby of radfem ideology is REG.)



you can watch your friends groups for warning signs of becoming cultlike* by asking yourself a few questions occasionally:

has my friendsgroup ostracized and turned on a friend when they said they didn’t agree with an opinion the rest of us held? was it a rapid/sudden turn without allowing any discussion or debate? was it so vicious it made me afraid to express a dissenting opinion?



was it a rapid/sudden turn without allowing any discussion or debate? was it so vicious it made me afraid to express a dissenting opinion? do I feel pushed/goaded to dissociate from friends who don’t hold the same opinions as my main friendsgroup, even if it’s against my wishes? does my friendsgroup talk disdainfully of all people who aren’t in our group or engage in ‘us vs the world’ language frequently?

does my friendsgroup talk disdainfully of people who aren’t in our group or engage in ‘us vs the world’ language frequently? Realistically, is there anything I wouldn’t do in the name of protecting/advancing the beliefs of my friends? If I think there are limits on what’s okay to do on behalf of our beliefs, would my friends agree? Am I afraid to tell them I think there are limits?

If I think there are limits on what’s okay to do on behalf of our beliefs, would my friends agree? Am I afraid to tell them I think there are limits? If someone in my friendsgroup hurts me, would I be afraid to confront them? would I feel like I’m betraying my whole friend circle by saying somebody did something harmful? Would I be afraid of severe consequences, like having my friends turn on me, even if I was believed?

If the answer to these questions suggest that loyalty may be more important than being kind or respectful to one another in your friendsgroup, that’s a warning sign of toxicity and potentially cultish dynamics. D:

(*use your discretion, dangit. obviously this isn’t a 1:1 for-sure correlation to your friendsgroup becoming shitty.)

and here’s some good reading on the subject of cults/cultlike groups: