Cult Recruitment Calls for an Emergency Response

by Liz Shaw

So, you scored high on the cult susceptibility test, you looked over the warning signs and identified with some of them, and the article about cult recruitment rang a bell about some new people you are involved with. What do you do now?

You must make a plan and stick with it before it is too late and you find yourself in a precarious situation! But let’s start with where you are right now.

Stinkin’ thinkin’

The most dangerous thing you might be experiencing right now is the “high” that comes from love bombing. If you can objectively admit that you are currently being love bombed then you are ahead of the game. If you don’t want to admit it, and you are being love bombed, then you are really in big trouble and may need some immediate professional help. (More on that later.)

Let’s quickly review what love bombing is.

Someone or several some ones are currently making you feel really good about yourself; maybe it is a feeling you have never had in your life. They are doing you favors, giving you gifts, taking you places, including you in their social circle, and telling you that you are a such a fun, creative, smart, (fill in the blank) person.

Maybe they are already to the next stage of convincing you that no one else understands you, but them. Maybe they are saying that your friends and family are “toxic” or “unevolved” or “worldly” or are any number or disparaging words from their loaded language. Basically the message is this: your old friends and family are bad people who don’t love you as much as we do.

Back the truck up!

Give me one minute of your time to help you think through this stinkin’ thinkin’!

Love bombing works because you practice “black and white thinking.” Something is either black or it is white, there are no in-between shades of gray. In a perfect world, maybe everything would be black or white, good or evil, up or down, right or left. We live in an imperfect world however, and there are lots of  “in the middles.”

When these people tell you that only they can appreciate or understand you, and you believe them, that is black and white thinking on your part. You undoubtedly have many people in your life who appreciate and understand you. There are family members, teachers and former teachers, friends, co-workers, and others you interact with on a daily basis. Do they do that perfectly all the time?  Of course not, and to expect that would also be black and white thinking.

These new people would like to make you believe that they will do everything perfectly for you, and all others will fail you miserably. Ain’t gonna happen! No one can be all things to someone at all times. I let people down, you let people down, people who genuinely love you will let you down, and believe me, these people are going to let you down big time once you turn your life over to them.

Love bombing is based on a lie. Yes, you are special, but sorry pals and gals, you ain’t that special! Nobody is! And your life is entangled with lots of bumbly-stumbly people who are just trying to do the best they can, and who would never tell you that they understood you completely when they don’t even understand themselves completely. Yep, you are in the human race with a lot of imperfect people running this marathon who love you and who have made mistakes along the way, but is that any reason to abandon them?

The cult will tell you it is.

You’ve heard it before. If it is too good to be true, then it probably is. Don’t fall for the lies these people are filling you up with such as, “We have perfect love for you like no one else does.” If you start allowing yourself to think that way, it is just a matter of time before you will genuinely feel that you have found your soul mates, and that you have been surrounded by morons your entire life. When this kind of thinking starts to permeate your feelings, you are getting close to falling asleep in la la land!

Wake up and smell the coffee

Now after examining your black and white thinking, you might be closer to admitting you are being love bombed, but there are still some things that could be holding you back. One is the intense, good-time feeling you are experiencing! Who needs drugs or alcohol? You are getting high on love…bombing.

Believe me, I know how this feels. I would sit by the phone and just will it to ring, hoping they were on the other end to tell me how special and misunderstood I was. I daydreamed about the next time I would get to be with the group to talk all this new lingo I was learning and impress them with my understanding (not!) of all the pure nonsense they were speaking. I wanted my regular friends and family to just get out of the way so I could keep getting this feeling of unconditional (or so I thought) love and peace.

Snap out of it!

It is your beta-endorphins talking. Your brain is actually getting rewired and you are not going to like it when it shorts out completely on you and the stakes get much higher, like lost marriages and relationships, careers, finances, health, and education to mention just a few.

Repeat after me. “These people are NOT perfect and they are not my friends. They are parasites and leeches. The feeling I am experiencing is a “dirty” high and I will crash and burn as soon as the honeymoon is over and they start treating me like the rest of the cult members.” Say it again.

Always remember Dorothy in the poppy field. You are getting very, very sleepy and they are getting more and more in control of your feelings. Wake up and smell the coffee; you must fight with all you have to run out of the poppy field before it is too late!

Sorting it all out

So, do I have your attention? You will agree that maybe there is a teeny, tiny chance that some new friends are “sort of” monopolizing your life and steering you away from your family and friends, devaluing your career or educational plans, and interfering with your normal day-to-day life? Will you will stop hitting the snooze button long enough to hear what else I have to say? Good enough.

You have to get away from these people, even if it feels like you are yanking out something so dear to your soul that you will die. In fact, if that is how it feels, all the more reason to cut it off, and NOW.

You need a plan. Here is what I would tell you to do if we were speaking face to face.

1. Reconnect with your very best friends, even if you have burned bridges already. If they demand an explanation about why you have been such a jerk for the last three months, tell them you were becoming overly-influenced by some new people you met, and that you have cut off the relationship with them.

If your buddies don’t demand an explanation, just say you have been really busy, want to get together soon, and that you have been a real jerk for ignoring them, so… “Want to have coffee tomorrow?” Let them rib you a little if necessary, but get back to your old haunts with them. (Unless of course you were stealing hubcaps and fencing them online together. If so, you will be interested in other resources on this webpage about creating new healthy friendships!)

Don’t stay in the cult recruitment downward spiral just to save face! It is better to be a little embarrassed than to be in bondage.

2. Get together with your friends as soon as possible. When you meet for coffee, or whatever, let your heart open to the feelings you used to have for these people. Let your mind remember how much fun you had together. Look at them through your “old” eyes and enjoy their quirks, stories, laughter, and everything that truly makes them someone you became friends with in the first place– warts and all. Ignore the lies that the group filled you with regarding your friends, and pick up where you left off.

3. Repeat this process with as many friends as you can and start working on the family members, too. By the way, the family might be a little harder to reconnect with because the cult has probably ripped them to shreds, and you may have been real snot to them. I know I was. Ask for forgiveness where you need to, and try to move past it.

Avoid the temptation to hash old sticky issues at this point; all families have sticky issues, and your goal is to just connect right now over some apple pie or while watching a TV show or during a walk around the mall window-shopping. Keep it real, keep it low-key, and keep it non-judgmental when the cult’s tapes start to play about your “loser family.”

4. Go back to what you did before in terms of routine, leisure activities, and entertainment. Your beta-endorphin receptors are going to be screaming for stimulation now that they have been primed with all the love-bombing! Think in an addiction model here, and find other ways to make them happy. Exercise, go to the movies, make dinner for someone, walk a dog, whatever it is that makes you feel some joy and peace.

Know that you will go through withdrawal and even doubt yourself. And, if you are going through withdrawal, there is no reason to doubt yourself…these people were obviously dangerous enough to simulate a drug and put you in withdrawal! You have made the right decision to cut it off, and unfortunately cold turkey is the only way when it comes to cults.

5. Tell the cult to go jump in a lake. Really, you might have to be that ugly to get them to leave you alone. Don’t worry about their feelings. Don’t mince words. If they won’t accept the fact that you no longer want to associate with them, then let ‘em have it straight.

“I’ve been considering my relationship with you, and I think it has become harmful to me, therefore I choose to break it off and am telling you not to contact me again. If you do I will have to resort to other options to get my point across to you.”

If they do not respect your wishes, go to the police and file a restraining order or have them arrested for stalking. I’m sorry to say, but this is sometimes necessary. One very important thing to avoid is engaging with them about why you are breaking off the relationship. You will not win any arguments with them. They will have rebuttal after rebuttal and that puts you in danger of wearing down and jumping back in. Keep it short and sweet, and then hang up or walk away….fast.

6. Read everything you can get your hands on about cults and mind control. This website is a terrific place to start and you can hang out with safe people. Watch the film clips and think about getting the DVD. Read the articles and blogs, connect with the online ex-cult member community, order books on the subject. Fill your mind with reliable information and new perspectives about what you have been involved with. Breaking down any information control that the group was starting to impose will be very helpful in battling the withdrawal symptoms of love bombing.

If you need more help

I recently spoke to a university student group about cult recruitment. After the talk, a shy young woman came up to me with tears in her eyes and asked if she could speak privately with me. We went into the hallway out of earshot of anyone and she burst into full sobs.

Over her summer break, Tina (not her real name) had been recruited by a cult while working at a job away from her family and friends. The recruitment had lasted only three weeks because her parents, thankfully, got wise to what was happening. She cut off all contact with the group, moved back home and found another job for the summer, and that was that.

Or was it? It seems that Tina began to have nightmares and was bothered by intrusive thoughts about the experience during the day. She was becoming phobic about participating in any of her sorority activities and feared being deceived again by people who claimed to be her friends.

As someone who had recovered from cult-induced posttraumatic stress disorder, I urged her to seek counseling because what she was describing sounded all too familiar. However, I also told her to speak with her parents and ask them if they would help her find a professional who was familiar or at least willing to become familiar with the trauma that cult involvement causes.  I gave her some names of professionals that I knew and some website addresses. I never heard from her after that, but I can only hope that she got the help she needed.

Tina’s experience with cult recruitment was only three weeks in length. Think about that for a minute. Even such a short time under cultic influence can wreak havoc on your wellbeing and cause something as serious as PTSD. You are playing with fire if you are playing with a cult.

Don’t hesitate to get more help if you need it. Although there is a shameful lack of training for treating cultic trauma in the counseling education programs at our universities, there are those who have taken it upon themselves to learn more about effective treatments. Don’t give up until you find someone who knows how to treat the problem, or who is willing to consult with those who know how. You might be interested is reading the article Questions to Ask a Therapist about Their Knowledge of Cults.

One last plea

I know there are still some who have read all of this information, but are still on the fence about deciding to end their contact with the cult recruiters.  It is simply feeling too good to walk away from, isn’t it? Here is what I have to say to you.

If you are bound and determined to continue on this collision course, then at least do some damage control.

1. Don’t burn all your bridges with friends and family just in case you find yourself in need of a safe haven or someone to turn to when you decide to leave the cult. Keep that information secret, and only in your head. Just to be safe, memorize some phone numbers or e-mail addresses if you are moving in with a cult member. Pick at least one person in your mind that you know you could always call on for help, and don’t let the cult sever that tie. In fact keep all information about that person totally a secret from the group, and never, ever bring up their name again to anyone in the group. This person could be your life line at a later time, and believe me, the cult will cut that line if they know about it.

2. Don’t let them have all of your money so that you will have some for the emergencies that are surely going to come your way now that you are in a cult. Cults are notorious for not allowing members to go to the ER, and yes I know of some cult members who died because of it. Also, if you have enough for bus fare out of town and some fast food, you will be in better shape than most.

If you move in with some of the group members, hide the money in a sock, under your mattress, or even pinned to your underwear, but not in a bank account. If you are in a real emergency, you have to be able to grab the money quickly. The cult will eventually get your social security number and clean out your accounts, or even talk you into simply handing over all your assets. It’s much easier for them that way and leaves no paper trails.

Resist the temptation to hand over your stash to the cult when you learn of a new “need” the group has to advance their mission. Usually all a cult leader has to do is just hold out his or hand hand, and the members will dig deeper in their pockets and fork it over. Keep your cash pinned to your underwear and out of your pocket!

3. Avoid getting married and having children in the cult like the plague. Put that off as long as possible, although the longer you are in the group, the harder that will be. Cults often practice arranged marriages, and if they get you married to a group member, then it is going to take dynamite to dislodge you from the cult. Staying single allows you to travel light, as they say, so if you have to run, you are running alone without a cult arranged spouse and sadly, any dependant children who were born of a cultic union.

4. And finally, keep connected to the outside at all costs. Sneak and read newspapers,  listen to the radio, and try very, very hard to get on the Internet. Public libraries are usually the place most cult members dash into without being caught, and some will also risk serious punishment to secretly use the cult leader’s computer from time to time.

You must have accurate information at all times to compare it to the lies the cult will surely be feeding you. You can forget about your cell phone by the way. If you do get to  keep it, most likely they will check your bill or even buy the plan for you so they can keep tabs on whom you talk to. And you know what, you are in a cult and you really won’t mind because you have given up long ago any ability for independent thought or opinions that run contrary to the group-think.

I’ve done all I can; the rest is up to you.