The Psychology of Cults | Hacker News Reader

The Psychology of Cults

harvard.simplesyllabus.com

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I also recommend Don Delillo's Mao II, which covers the Moon cult and the deprogramming of one of the ex-followers.

And Ted Patrick! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzlNrWlakmA

Cults are fascinating- some appear to be by opportunists, and others true believers, but all are dangerous. I feel that the word cult is sometimes given a bad name, and it is overlooked in the word culture, yet I think it is a great way to examine modern-day dictatorships and nuclear powers, which still use some some of that power (maybe not so much in the west) to broadcast a cult of personality.

i wonder about the boundary lines. is believing that moses got ten commandments on a mountain like a cult?

I guess it depends. I've always liked this phrase, and it's not exclusive to the Christian Bible- it's in other Abrahamic faiths:

"“Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted. To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because ‘they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.’ Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them… But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.” – Matthew 13:11-14, 16"

Though I have to say, what is in the ten commandments isn't the most terrible advice. :)

it's good advice. it's what i'd direct my tribe with. that's what it is. the tribe leaders writing what is what for the ordinary people. that becomes their truth. it is a brainwashing, and i think, is basically what cult means.

If you agree with the BITE model then yes. Yes it is.

Judaism doesn't proselytize. It goes out of its way to reject converts[1]. It actively encourages questioning and critical thinking[2]. These attributes are contrary to cults.

1. https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/17635/was-judais...

2. https://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/3574984/jewis...

That’s like finding green patches after a wildfire and pointing out that wildfires aren’t all bad.

is proselytizing a requisite of a cult?

One moment Moses is ordering the male children put to death. Next thing you know 3000 years later somewhere in northern Michigan an old lady is playing the pipe organ while signing off key.

Mind Control Made Easy by Carey Burtt (HQ)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJfm71I0OyU

But...don't you WANT to be a cult leader?

Feel the need to post this fantastic read: https://www.thecut.com/article/larry-ray-sarah-lawrence-stud...

> His primary conversational tactic is to overwhelm. He can go on 20-minute unbroken monologues, especially if the subject turns to his victimhood. Everyone in his past, from his defense attorneys to his own mother, is “corrupt” or “biased.” He firmly believes that he, Felicia, Isabella, and Talia have been poisoned — and are still being poisoned. “We’ve suffered so much, and we’re still suffering so much,” he says.

Has anyone here met anyone like this irl?

I no longer speak with my neighbour, but she introduces herself quickly to everyone that moves into the building. When she speaks like this, I suspect it's part of a manic episode.

Yes, an angry, orange one.

Plot-twist: our entire society is essentially a cult, parenting and education is simply indoctrination, and the same psychological glitches which are exploited in order to produce compliant citizens are also exploited by would-be cult leaders to control their unfortunate members.

Can't fix the problem because doing so would unravel everything we call society.

Why would you say something so controversial, yet so brave?

Cult and society being one and the same: a shared delusional thinking that one’s value system is the one true answer. Cult being just a minority with particularly (in the majority’s view) extreme positions.

I think we can all appreciate the flexibility of language when defining the word cult. But in practical terms was the Branch davidian the same as, say, the Mormon church or your nan's knitting circle?

The difference between Mormonism (or any other religion) and a cult is one of degree, not kind

The joke is the difference between a cult and a religion is 100 years.

I like the definition: myths are religions people no longer believe in. Cults are far more exclusive and demanding of their members

That is not true. A defining characteristic of cults is a sense of imminite danger from government or status quo and a willingness to lay down ones life in defense of it. To say that is a few degrees off of what major religions think means your compass is waaay off!

This would have described the Mormon church not long ago. That's why they went to Utah!

You got a point: new religions are cult like but you got to agree that fleeing religious persecution and loading up stockpiles are also kinds, not degrees!

> A defining characteristic of cults is a sense of imminite danger from government or status quo and a willingness to lay down ones life in defense of it.

Is this actually a defining characteristic? I didn’t think cults were defined so narrowly. I understood cults to simply be highly insular groups with extreme views. Like the Flat Earth Society would a cult, though I don’t think they feel imminent danger or are willing to lay down their lives.

Would disagree. Cults have some charismatic leader running the show, afaik the LDS (or regular organized religions more generally) aren't like this

The priest (or equivalent) generally serves this role in kind, and for some sects degree. Religions include the same kind of inoculation with respect to belief, exclusion, and suspicion of outside influences that cults have: it’s just expressed differently (sometimes).

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were the charismatic cult leaders of Mormonism. Since their time, the mainstream Mormon Church headquartered in Salt Lake City has become less and less cultish and more bureaucratic, yet they still qualify as a cult according to the BITE model, and there are many Mormon splinter groups that are among the worst cults active today.

That must be quite the knitting circle (to count as an entire society).

I don't think you can say that the dynamic is the same. With a cult, there's usually a single leader, there's usually a hierarchy

Does society have those things, inherently? A touchy question

Is there a cult that doesn't have those things? I've yet to find one. It seems to me that cults are similar not to general society, but to fascist societies

Uh, the word is culture.

Yes. Indeed. Thoughts and behavior are inherited in ways exactly the same as evolution but transmitted through various forms of learning and writing, etc. instead of through genetic material.

Saying it with a sneer does not really add anything.

I find zero-, positive-, and negative- sum games classification more informative. I guess the negative sum or zero sum cult are oppressive while the positive sum cults are tolerable? Rich are definitely getting richer and it is not so bad as long as poor are also doing a little better?

> and the same psychological glitches which are exploited in order to produce compliant citizens are also exploited by would-be cult leaders to control their unfortunate members.

That's only true in part.

Cults typically play on combinations of specific aspects of psychology, and generally a given cult will only "work" on certain people.

The same is true for parenting and education. Not all children can be effectively parented (or cultily-parented to take your view for a moment) by their specific parents, and certainly not all children can be indoctrinated, let alone educated as intended in a given environment.

Further, I think it's wise to add in these cases that a thing can be systematic and be explained in an organized manner to appear as if it's organized and systematic on purpose, and even designed by specific individuals, when none of that is actually the case. Otherwise we only-humans tend to start looking for someone to blame, effectively hallucinating.

And in many cases the problem you describe can be fixed without unraveling society and _already is being fixed automatically in many ways_. But that also requires going into lots of details to discuss; the generalities alone, while exciting or fear-inducing in isolation, tend to resolve down to too much hand-waving.

A lot of good people are out there working their @$$ses off helping people work together to improve society, bringing the best parts forward while leaving this unwanted stuff behind us.

Meh, he discovered why the word “culture” and “cult” share the same root. Or “cultivate”.

That’s not some grand observation, any middle schooler can see the obvious reason why they’re similar.

You gotta ask, "am I in a cult?"

At this point, I think most tech companies are a cult. So, on this board, a large number of people should be replying "yes".

But labor is fundamentally transactional, and genuinely so. A cult is not.

wow, if that's what you think defines a cult, then I'd venture you haven't spent too much time around cults.

1. I haven't spent a lot of time around cults.

2. I didn't claim this defines a cult, I'm pointing out a key difference.

Or as a laborer.

(See: literally any thread about RTO, or grad school, or starup culture vs corporate culture, and so on.)

Final research project: start your own cult.

Calm down L Ron Hubbard

These are the 2020s. It's "L-Ron".

This would be a reasonably clever name for a rapper.

Ah yes, the "it's not bigotry because it's taught at Harvard" garbage.

No thanks.

What? What do cults have to do with bigotry?

Well, in a way, it doesn’t seem to encourage any evaluation of whether the cults had a point or were positive, it just assumes they are negative. That is technically bigotry (though so is a gazelle being afraid of all lions).

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