Current Events > How people get sucked into cults? >_>

(+) Yeah! (+)

I know part of the MO of cults is to recruit the outcasts of society and keep them separate from it so that they can control it, but seriously how do dumb motherfuckers fall for it? >_> Wouldn't they realize how crazy some of these leaders are, especially if it ends up with the leader banging all the chicks cuz he says he's divine or asking for all their money or some crap like that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH7MKp5A_Ik

Seriously, people can't be this dense in the face of absurdity, right?

I'm not trying to upset anyone. I'm not sure the exact statistics, but most of the people in the world are in a "cult." Granted, the commercially successful and socially accepted cults. The stuff that they get away with in that video, they can get away with in your big box churches too.

Id join a cult if u could breed your sons hot wife

a lot of people who fall into cults are disaffected and isolated and feel the world doesnt make sense in one way or another. a person with charisma and all the answers tailor made to make them feel special somehow is exactly what that type of person is often weak to

one small, seemingly reasonable, decision at a time.

or, you're born into it.

A lot of them think they're going to change the world or do something great and while they adjust, thier freedoms are slowly stripped to the point where they are stuck there as they try to fit in. Things get to the point where doing anything is hard if they even realize they're being taken advantage of like with forced clothing being uniforms and being united and all sorts of scary shit that's actually pretty easy to fall for on its own at that level.

Cult leaders are usually great at doing this to strip a person of their identity

Edit: also what everyone else said.

Humans are stupid and easy to manipulate. Look at how many people throw money at prosperity gospel preachers or faith healers. What they are saying doesn't make any sense, yet they make tons of money and have large organizations. They tell you what you want to hear or need to believe and go from there.

Cults are a more extreme version of that. They often don't begin with utter nonsense, and instead lure whatever particular subset of vulnerable people they are targeting in with appealing looking nonsense and a sense of community. Gradually, you become aware of a hierarchy and expected behavior. You might be promised things that sound great, and even when the inconsistencies start to appear, you want what you believe the group can give you, and you start to trust your new "friends" and "mentors" and think it'll make sense later. There are often levels to these groups, and you are promised that some things are hard to understand but make sense later when you are more involved. If you get sucked into a cult with an occult bent, you'll often be strongly discouraged from sharing your results with the group, so as to hide the fact that people aren't experiencing the same thing or that it just doesn't do anything.

No one kind of cult has to be too succesfull in order to sustain itself or provide for the needs of the people running it. A low success rate is perfectly fine. And once they've got you--whether it's a mainstream religion, nonsensical stuff like Prosperity Gospel, multi-level marketing, a New Age cult, or whatever it is--you think what you believe is all well and good, and everyone else has something wrong with their thinking or are missing out.

It's not about being smart or not. Humans are easy to manipulate, and nobody thinks it will happen to them.

Nothing else to get sucked into.
Desperation or isolation stemming from that.
Big money, big prizes offered by cult.
Or scaremongering.

Their definition of normal slowly becomes warped for some reason. They're craving some kind of purpose, so they're offered what they think is a secret only a select few know. They're at rock bottom and they think they're offered a salvation they cannot find anywhere else. They're pompous and they think their wealth has let them into a super secret club that has the real truth.

NeonOctopus posted...

I know part of the MO of cults is to recruit the outcasts of society

You answered your own question. >_> They focus on the outcasts of society and sucker them in with charisma and tell them what they want to hear (make them feel special, make them believe an outside force is the source of their problems, etc.) then add in some brainwashing and gaslighting and you've got a loyal follower.

CE is a cult

One of my high school teachers joined a cult in the 1970s. She had a father who constantly beat her while growing up. One of her Aunts hired somebody to kidnap her away from the cult and bring her back home.

Cults are feelings-based. Some people really like to believe in a fiction they WANT to be true, even though it's not reality.

Some old man came up to me in Barnes and Noble once, tried to explain to me how the Bible secretly talks about "God the Mother" and that Jesus was reincarnated as a South Korean woman.

Also ran into another Christian cult that took the 144,000 thing super literally. Like there would literally only be 144,000 people allowed into heaven, period. I didn't bother talking too much but I did wonder how many members of the cult were and why people competing over such strict admittance would be actively proselytizing. If someone told me "only X amount of people are allowed into heaven" I'd be like "thanks bro" and then would take that knowledge with me to my fucking grave lol

Nananana leader!

Cults ultimately lean on the tendency for people to refuse to admit they were wrong or got conned in order to prevent them from leaving so cult members need to do increasingly stupid shit to justify staying in them