Name: 脱洗脳の専門家だけど「カルト」について質問ある？ | Tech Support | WIRED Japan
Uploaded: 2025-03-01T09:15:17.000Z
Duration: 30 min 46 s
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Let's answer your questions from the internet.

At joysfree11 asks, what are the signs I'm in a cult?

Social isolation, being cut off from family and old friends.

Unable to ask critical questions regarding the leader of the group or the group's behavior.

A feeling that if I leave, I must be wrong.

And there's just no checks and balances to the leader's power or transparency regarding the group's finances and many of its actions.

If you begin to get that kind of gut feeling that you're in a cult, maybe you are.

And it's time to take a step back, unplug, and look over those warning signs.

At creation247 asks, what makes a cult a cult?

There are three primary core characteristics that form the nucleus for virtually any definition of a destructive cult.

Number one, that there is an absolute totalitarian leader that is the defining element and driving force of the group.

And that leader becomes an object of worship.

Number two, the leader uses identifiable techniques of coercive persuasion to gain undue influence.

And number three, having acquired undue influence, the leader uses it to exploit and do harm to his or her followers.

It's important at this point to understand that not all cults are religious.

For example, Charles Diederich led a group called Synanon, which was a drug rehabilitation community.

It wasn't about religion, but Diederich had absolute power and control.

A corporation like Apple could be seen as a cult, but a benign cult.

Steve Jobs, when he was alive, was the defining element and driving force of the corporation.

The followers of Taylor Swift can be seen as a cult following, but Taylor Swift is not using coercive persuasion to gain undue influence over her following.

In the case of North Korea, the leader is worshiped as a virtual god on earth.

And he is the defining element and driving force of the entire country.

And the people are locked in, in a kind of social isolation.

So I see North Korea as an example of how an entire country can become a destructive cult.

Yes, there can be family cults, typically being dominated by a father figure who has absolute control over the family, who literally never lets his children grow up.

They stay in the family, they work, bring their paychecks to the family leader, and the marriages and the dating and everything is controlled by that parent who leads the family cult.

A cult only requires at least one follower.

So you can have an abusive controlling relationship where the abusive partner is in the role of a cult leader.

She was cut off from friends until she finally left.

AtbugHatesHugs asks, why do cults believe the end is near?

If I had a cult, I'd just be like, let's all just have fun.

But if you're a cult leader, what you're looking for is a leverage point.

So if you tell people that the end is near and the only safety they can be sure of is within your group, you now have a means to get them to cleave closer to you.

So doomsday becomes a coercive persuasion technique.

An example of a doomsday cult would be the Waco Davidians led by David Koresh.

Koresh said that the end was imminent, that he would judge the world, and that only those that were with him in what was at one time called Ranch Apocalypse would be safe.

When I did deprogrammings of Waco Davidians, they were frantic at times to get into the compound, to be with Koresh so that they would be protected.

They made weapons illegally in the compound, arming themselves to defend themselves against what he said was Satan.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and there was a shootout.

David Koresh decided it was time for the end, and the place was burned down.

At East of the Wood asks, how are cults different in any way from religion?

First of all, religious organizations typically have democratic governance, checks and balances, transparency, and accountability.

You are not made to feel that you've turned against God simply by leaving a particular church.

It has been said that religions began as cults, and in some sense, you can see that in the case of the Mormon Church, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or Seventh-day Adventism.

It began with an absolute charismatic leader that was the defining element and driving force of the group.

If we look at Mormonism, we see that first there was Joseph Smith, then there was Brigham Young, but over a period of time, the group evolved beyond that point to governance of many people, and the group moved closer and closer to the mainstream.

At Miss Ressi asks, do cult leaders know they are cult leaders?

A cult leader can be seen as very much like a con man, except they run the same con on the same people indefinitely.

But they feel that anything they do is justified.

The ends justify the means, and they determine what ends are just.

At Maria's Ghost asks, which cults have a good online presence?

All of the major groups have an online presence.

They have YouTube channels, they have followers on TwitterX, they have Facebook pages, they have search engine optimized themselves so that they will insinuate themselves in searches.

People can become completely indoctrinated in a cult without ever meeting the leader.

They can do this by watching the leader's YouTube videos and communicating with people online.

One example of a well-known cult online would be a group called the TikTok cult.

They follow a minister by the name of Shin who put together a church online and according to complaints, exploited people who are dancers in the entertainment industry to create very popular clips for TikTok to make money.

And they would actually live in a community in group housing and be controlled by this group.

But everything would be based on what they were doing in large part online.

I still think about the scene in Midsommar, the Harga women surrounding and holding Dani and wailing with her in empathy, sharing her pain so beautiful yet so horrifying.

I've seen Midsommar and I would say that it's really not about empathy.

The group wants to essentially anesthetize her so that she no longer will be a problem.

So by surrounding her, they have encapsulated her and it's almost as if they're saying,

Dani, you no longer have your own individual feelings.

I think the best film that you can watch to see how cults really work is a 2011 film, Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene.

It directly mirrors what it would be like to be in a cult and leave a cult and how difficult the recovery might be.

AtGreggsVO asks, how do cult leaders get people to believe they are God in the flesh when I can't get my children to wear shoes when they leave the house?

It's all about cutting people off from any outside frame of reference or accurate feedback about what's going on.

When was the last time that you were in a theater and there was a standing ovation and you sat and did nothing?

Didn't the people around you cause you to stand up and clap too?

Well, that is what goes on in cults, only on a much more intense level.

I have met cult leaders face-to-face, some of them quite charismatic, others really not at all.

But what they all share in common is that they are malignant, narcissistic people.

I feel like I'm meeting the same person over and over again because their personalities are so similar.

ChoiceCheck3900 asks, do cults recruit based on appearance?

I think I was recruited because to be blunt,

I'm ugly as f**k and people probably think I'm easy to extort from.

Typically what cults want are people that are healthy, relatively young, that can work for the group.

They're not interested in anyone based on appearance other than are you able to produce for the group?

At MXHeadroom asks, why do all cults get so weird and crazy about sex?

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脱洗脳の専門家だけど「カルト」について質問ある？ | Tech Support | WIRED Japan

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