Cults and Total Institutions

Well as i am going through my course materials for Intro to Sociology the required reading brought me to a section on Erving Goffman. Goffman was a Canadian Sociologist whose early works had him studying life in institutions, IE prisons, and mental health wards. His works brought me back to another subject I had looked at a while ago and that was Cults, and defining what cults were. In that subject matter, I read that studies on Cults were difficult to complete. The reasons are quite understandable, Cults usually are things that are Identified “posthumously,” and no one really goes out and says “Hey we’re a cult come join us.” Cults also evolve over time and do not usually begin as such. I would say they are more like the frog who has been put in a cauldron of water and had water temperature increase slowly and gradually over time until the water is boiling and it is too late for the frog to get out.

This all being said I think the claim that “cults” have not been studied I believe is not entirely true. I believe Goffman’s work on “Asylums: Essays on the Condition of the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates” is totally applicable to Cults. I think the only main difference between life in an institution and life in a cult, is the circumstance that brought you there. I believe that as an institutionalized person your overall goal is to get out and back into society as a whole person, whilst the mindset of those who are in a cult would probably be they never want to leave and immerse themselves further and further until mainstream society becomes something they avoid rather than embrace.

Now there are those who are in an institutionalized environment that never want to leave because they have been there so long they are afraid of the outside world we definitely know that there are those who realize they are in an unhealthy environment and once that realization attempt to leave. In either of those cases usually, the transition to normal society is difficult. In these cases what sometimes happens is re-institutionalization or winding up in another cult or perhaps even creating one. There is also the sad situation where the idea of leaving, or the realization they need to leave is so profound that suicides occur.

What is that you say?

Over the last few months I have been sitting back collecting my thoughts and expressing my feelings much to the chagrin of former friends and acquaintances. Mainly because I am putting things out there in the wild. Why you might ask is because I need to vent. Yes I could write this all down in a nice little quiet journal offline. No one would see it but me. But for me that does not suffice. I lost one friend who was not vocal enough, hid his angst away, and kept it mainly to himself. Yes he spoke to a few people who he thought he could trust. Those enablers that allowed him to continue on his path to suicide. So yes I may seem outspoken and maybe considered the “enemy of the state” and being kept under a watchful eye. But wait maybe I am not alone, and If I am not alone then YANA.

With a continuation of my previous post some things I have forgotten or maybe was in denial about or just not sure of and needed to rediscover. There is no clear cut, definitive guide or “AHA” to what determines a cult a cult. Yes there are warning signs and indicators but no one really fully understands the inner workings of cults. We are all familiar with the Dalmer, the Manson scenario but at first these things did not necessarily fall into the realm of “cult.” No one has actually infiltrated a cult and broke down their inner workings from a sociological, psychological point of view. No one has actually done a successful active case study on a cult from within. Most cults are not determined to be cults until after a long enough period of time has elapsed that there are enough people who come forward and say “hey man I think this is a cult” and some one actually case studies the former members.

Cults never admit to being cults. Members who remain active within the cult never see the cult. Cult leaders never admit to being cult leaders.

here lists some of the warning signs you maybe in a cult. But again no list is a definitive and I have found multiple lists but this to me seems to be most complete.

The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
The group is preoccupied with making money.
Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth).
The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).
The group has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.
The group’s leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations).
The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).
The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
Members’ subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.
Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group.
Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.

Sounds of Silence.

Caution the post you are about to read may anger you, it also may make you think. The substance of this post is derived from an article that appeared in ‘RollingStone’ magazine. I have read many articles similar to this as of late. In a soul searching effort. I still do not know where this research will land me. Before I get to the rest of the post a quote from a song by Simon and Garfunkel.

And in the naked light, I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

To me this verse simply states there it was in plain sight, everyone seeing it, thinking it, hearing it, writing about it. But no one dares break the silence. Why… for fear of repercussions, for fear of blacklisting, for fear of being ostracized, for fear of being alone. If fear is keeping you where you are, causing you to be silent and not question, you should speak, you should leave.

Now the source for my post is here : https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/what-is-cult-hopping-nxivm-dos-838750/

the following is an excerpt from the article which and some what edited but the base of what is being said remains

Those who leave cults on their own most often do so because they’ve had a bad experience with the group, perhaps observing something that violates their own ethics, or inconsistencies between the leader’s behavior and his teachings. But contrary to what you might expect, from the perspective of a former cult member, having one bad experience with a cult does not necessarily reflect on cult-like organizations as a whole.

Former members may be disillusioned with that specific group, but open to the next one because they think, ‘Of course that group didn’t have the truth. This one does.’

But the main reason why cult-hopping is so prevalent stems from an extremely common (and incorrect) assumption about cult members: that they’re inherently naive or poorly educated or vulnerable to being duped. On the contrary most people who become involved in cults come from middle-class or upper-middle-class backgrounds and have higher than average IQs. They also tend to have a history of becoming attracted to social justice movements and causes. We’re talking about people who want to change the world, who want to do something productive. It isn’t until it’s too late that they realize the only person whose life they’re improving is their leader.

When we hear stories about cults, we tend to assume that they exist separate of us and our own communities; we tend to think that we would never be so naive as to succumb to the wiles of a charismatic leader selling us salvation or love or self-empowerment. But the truth is that anyone could be vulnerable to cult influence at a certain point in their lives, typically during a stage of transition, when they’ve just lost their job or had a child or experienced a bad breakup. The primary cause of cult membership is bad luck.