Are you in a cult? — Cult-like behaviour and abuse in social groups.
Some of you may know me as the person who appears in random online shows, rants (hopefully informatively and compassionately) about QAnon, cults and Nazis for a couple of hours and then disappears after losing my patience with a right-leaning, and sometimes even left-leaning, individual’s constant minimisation of the threat that I believe these groups pose. I accept that this is a fair characterisation of my usual behaviour. But I do this because I care and I care because I have seen up close what these cults can do to people. I have spent the last 8 months embedding myself in QAnon’s online spaces in an attempt to observe and understand them. Before that I did the same with flat-earthers and before that I spent altogether too much time with neo-nazis and other far-right groups. Alongside all this I have spent time with other smaller cultic groups as I am made aware of them. All these groups display behaviours in common that are harmful to the individual adherent and to others around them. All these groups share means by which they control their members.
Models of Cultic Control, Lifton and Hassan -
Two of the academics I have found helpful in my attempts to contextualise the behaviours I have experienced and observed within these cultic communities are Robert Jay Lifton and Steven Hassan. Lifton is a professor of psychiatry famous for his research into the psychology of Nazi doctors and the Aum Shinrikyo cult. In 1953 he began to interview American servicemen who had been held captive by the Chinese during the Korean war and Chinese folks who fled Maoist China. The subject of these interviews was the techniques used by the CCP to indoctrinate and control. His insights led him to a model of cultic mind control that he lays out in his book ‘Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China’. Conveniently laid out in eight points it describes how groups seek to control their members. I shall go over them briefly here but for greater detail I thoroughly encourage you to either read the book or visit freedomofmind’s page on Lifton’s Criteria of Thought Reform.
- Control of the Milieu -
A milieu is a social environment. Cults use control over a person’s social environment (through various methods including isolation, control of information available to the member, setting up and ‘us vs them’ dichotomy that separates members from broader society etc.) - Mystical manipulation -
The group or it’s leader(s) may present themselves as having unusual control or foresight of events and experiences. Often this can take the form of the leader claiming the status of divine prophet, supernatural healer or even godhood but can also be mundane such as having unique skill or insight. - The Demand For Purity -
The group adopts a black/white moral outlook. The world is divided into good and evil and they leave little space for the nuances and complexities of human morality. This creates a powerful tool to compel action through guilt or shame. Members must always strive toward higher levels of purity. - Confession -
Tied into the demand for purity is the emphasis on confession. Confessions of a pre-cult life of sin can give legitimacy to the adherent and license to accuse others. “The more I accuse myself the more I can judge you”. Such sins are exploited by the leaders for control. Some adherents in leadership positions may admit to past sins for legitimacy while keeping secret others that may hinder their status or ascendance within the group. - Sacred Science -
The group’s doctrine or ideology is the ultimate truth and is unquestionable. Those who are outside the group are unenlightened and ignorant. Likewise, the leader(s) are also not to be questioned or criticised.
Noted for bringing particular security to young people who are comforted by a simplistic ordering of society and an all-encompassing ‘science’ by which to explain human behaviour and psychology. - Loading the Language -
Thought-terminating clichés prevent further critical thought and alter the member’s manner of thinking. They may use language in a novel way that the outside world does not understand with words or phrases uninterpretable by the uninitiated. - Doctrine over person -
The world’s problems, and the individual’s experiences, can be explained and resolved only through the lens of the group’s ‘sacred science’. When the individual’s experience contradicts the group doctrine the individual is wrong and must reassess or dismiss their own experience. This can be tied into guilt, shame and confession and used in similar fashion. - Dispensing of Existence -
The group, having their ‘sacred science’ is enlightened and the outside world is ignorant and evil. Should one leave the group then they should be shunned or destroyed. As the group is the only one with access to the truth they are the ones with the right to decide the validity of others’ right to exist. One outside the group may always gain legitimacy by joining the group. Helps to exert ontrol through fear of consequences and motivates members to attack outsiders, apostates and threats to their legitimacy.
Building upon the work of Lifton and other researchers such as Margaret Singer and Leon Festinger, Steven Hassan developed the BITE model. BITE is an acronym for ‘Behaviour, Information, Thought and Emotional’ and lists the manners in which cultic groups exert control over these facets of the human experience and psyche. His model provides more specific examples of the ways in which this is accomplished and can also be viewed (with helpful infographics) on freedomofmind’s website.
It is important to note that both of these models are made to accommodate heirarchical and centralised cults. Those with clear leadership and organisational structures but their insights into manners and methods of psychological control can also be relevant to more decentralised cults like QAnon or Antivaxxers who may have leadership figures and in the case of QAnon a leadership figure who does not take direct control of the group but does not have a strict authoritarian heirarchical structure. It is not hard to see how, for instance, the ‘Q drops’ which were anonymously dropped on 4chan became a part of that group’s Sacred Science and Doctrine. The world and reality in which many Q adherents live is one in which the world must be explained in accordance with the text of those posts. If evidence that contradicts them is discovered then it must be ‘fake news’ or reinterpreted.
Likewise Q adherents live in a black and white world where there is only those privy to the truth, those who must be awakened to it and those who actively work to destroy them. Indeed they even use the phrases ‘white hats’ and ‘black hats’ to describe those they think are working for their cause and those working for the ‘deep state cabal’. Thought-terminating cliches are also common. ‘Trust the plan’, ‘Sit back and enjoy the show’ and so on. Remember that the points laid out in Lifton and Hassan’s models need not all be present for one to use the label of ‘cult’. They are merely descriptors of the ways in which cultic groups exert psychological control over their members.
But I don’t believe in Q, how could I be in a cult?
The behaviours detailed above are disturbing in their ability to warp the perceptions of adherents to group ideologies. They stifle dissent and critical examination of group doctrine and give moral license to adherents to punish or attack those who disagree with the ‘sacred science’. If present within such a group ideology it would be prudent to examine them. The purpose of this article is to provoke reflection. I would like anyone who reads this to ask themselves the titular question, ‘Am I in a cult?’. For most of you I would hope the answer is no. Even if you recognise some of these behaviours in a social group you are part of it may very well not reach the bar of deserving the label of ‘cult’, a word that is ill-defined colloquially and even academically and will likely be the subject of a future article. But in asking this question to oneself and using the models above my hope is that some may find themselves better able to identify how these methods of control, which do not necessarily require leaders to enact and may arise spontaneously within social groups, are hampering one’s ability to think clearly and critically about the beliefs they hold and the behaviours they engage in. I am often heard to say that ‘nobody is immune to cult indoctrination’. It is my firm belief that under the right circumstances any one of us could have been Q Anoners. We just got lucky. These controlling techniques are effective on human psychology and none of us are superhuman. Likewise these behaviours are not unique to cults. They are used by abusive partners, controlling friends and by public figures and their fandoms.
The harm these cult-like behaviours can inflict and inspire is real. It may be as bad as the mass-suicide of the Heaven’s gate cult or the violent mass-murders of ISIL affiliated jihadists. Or it may be the shunning of a friend or family member. Pushing them into isolation at a time when we are all in need of support. It could even be the vitriolic and abusive conflicts between members of different fandoms that result in extreme harassment, doxxings and death threats. It pays to ask oneself when motivated to hurt another in such a fashion whether the action is productive. Whether the ideological difference is truly so vast that it requires such a harsh response. It is always worth asking ourselves these questions if we want to prevent abuse and it is useful, I think, to keep the models above in mind when examining our motivations for such acts.
