The Psychology of Cults

The study of sects is one of the most interesting fields of study within the branch of religion. Social psychology. But... what is the psychology of cults?

The case of Charles Manson

In the late 1960s, an Ohio musician named Charles manson established himself as a guru in San Francisco during the "Summer of Love", a festival and rally hippie. His aspirations were to be famous and a millionaire, and he soon gained the first group of his followers, who formed a cult called "The Manson Family.

Soon they all went to live on a ranch where Manson instructed them on what he called Helter skelter (term taken from the song with the same name of the Beatles), a supposed racial war between black and white that was coming.

There used to be five women for every man in the sect, and they had weekly psychedelic orgies with marijuana, peyote, LSD Y violations of minors included. Manson took care that his followers lost their sexual taboos, inducing them to behaviors related to homosexuality, anal sex, etc.

Charles Manson never killed anyone with his bare hands, but his acolytes are credited with several murders, including that of Sharon tate, the then wife of Roman polanski.

This introduction leads us to ask ourselves several questions. What leads someone to join a cult and take obedience to extremes like murder? What happens inside the sects? What is the psychological profile of your leaders?

Cults and their mental traps

The sects are complex groups, formed by a hierarchical and pyramidal structure, led by a charismatic guru who demands a exploitative devotion and dedication that usually ends up leading to emotional, social or economic damage to the people.

Psychological profile of a cult leader

The psychological profile of a cult guru is highly complex. These are people with great capacities to seduce and entangle group participants, so among their personal characteristics is loquacity, the labia and a high degree of social skills. Cult leaders are capricious, tyrannical, and even despotic, and they end up verbally, physically, or sexually abusing their members.

They cannot bear to have their authority questioned and they seek to parasitize their members to extract all their resources from them. They move through the narcissism and the need to control others to achieve their own ends.

They are fueled by excessive egos and shape the world according to their own vision, manipulating individuals. They are specialists in capturing people's weaknesses to provide them with what they need and thus attract them even more to them.

At what point does a person decide to enter a sect?

Entry into these groups tends to be smooth and progressive. Through a process of seduction, people are enraptured with promises. Normally this point coincides with a moment of personal crisis of the individual that increases his vulnerability and his need to find "magic" or "divine" solutions to his problems.

Likewise, people with a strong degree of loneliness or with an existential crisis that prevents them from finding meaning in their lives are vulnerable.

What happens inside the sects?

Within the sects worldly tactics of social influence are employed, taken to an extreme neither permissible nor ethical.

The ideology imparted by the leader is the only valid one, and any hint of doubt that appears in the mind of the adept will be annulled by verbal abuse, humiliation, humiliation or ridicule. It is in the interest of the individual to bend his personality and end up complying with all the indications of the leader. Therefore, an emotional destabilization occurs in the members.

Secrecy

Inside the sects there is a lot of secrecy. What happens inside cannot be counted outside under any circumstances. In addition, the members are made to believe themselves lucky to know such secrets, and they play on the feeling of exclusivity. Acolytes should feel important and fortunate to receive such information.

The ultimate goals of the cults

Cults are not always looking for sex or money. Most of them what they seek is to achieve the power and control of the minds of the members. The money comes later, once the will has been controlled.

The individual believes that the donations he makes are voluntary, he is not aware of the prior brainwashing he has been subjected to.

Basic characteristics of the sects

According to the British sociologist Bryan wilson, some characteristics common to all sects would be the following:

• People join voluntarily, although it can be induced.
• Membership may be subject to examination by the authorities of the group.
• There may be a small elite of people to which are assigned "secret knowledge" or special skills that can be reached based on "climbing" within the group.
• There is a claim to exclusivityTherefore, anyone who violates the doctrine, the moral or organizational precepts of the group is sanctioned.
• It aspires to perfection personal.

Dangers of entering a cult

People often do not realize the danger of where they are getting into until they are inside. Joining a sect can cause serious damage in various areas of the life of the followers.

The main consequences are the following:

• Isolation of individuals from the world at large and their family or personal relationships in particular.
• Control of all information that comes to them.
• A fatalistic and demonizing discourse is installed of the world and from people who are not part of the sect, so it is likely that individuals develop strong feelings of fear and distrust of life.
• Loss of ability to think criticallySince there is no democracy in any of the links in the hierarchy, neither questions nor suggestions are allowed.
• Mental destabilization Of the members.
• Exorbitant nature of financial demands.
• Attacks against physical integrity.
• Unrest of public order.

As in the case in which we spoke at the beginning of Charles Manson, people get so emotionally and financially involved that they may commit crimes simply by obeying the leader's instructions. And it is that human beings can do unimaginable things because someone tells them to do them.

To know more

There are two theories that explain the behavior of adherents within sects:

• Solomon Asch's work and his theory of conformity, which describes the relationship between the reference group and the individual person. A subject who has neither the knowledge nor the ability to make decisions (as is the case of the accepted ones to the sects) will transfer the decision making to the group and its hierarchy. The group will be the role model of the person.

• Stanley Milgram's reification theory, which states that the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person sees himself as an instrument that fulfills the wishes of other people, and therefore does not consider itself responsible for its actions. It is the foundation, for example, of military respect for authority, where soldiers will obey and execute the instructions issued by superiors with the understanding that the responsibility rests with these last.