Repairing the Soul after a Cult (sound familiar?)

Repairing The Soul After A Cult

Author: Janja Lalich



I was recruited into a cult in 1975 when I was 30 years old. The previous
year I returned to the United States after having spent almost four years in
exile abroad, where I lived the most serene life on an island in the
Mediterranean off the coast of Spain. If someone had told me that within a
year I would be deeply involved and committed to a cult, I would have
laughed derisively. Not me! I was too independent, too headstrong, a lover
of fun and freedom.

But there I was, new to the San Francisco Bay Area and before long cleverly
recruited into a group that preached Marxism and feminism and a passion for
the working class.

I was told that we would be unlike all other groups on the left because we
were led by women and because our leader was brilliant and from the working
class. I was told that we would not follow the political line of any other
country, but that we would create our own brand of Marxism, our own
proletarian feminist revolution; we would not be rigid, dogmatic, sexist,
racist. We were new and different -- an elite force. We were going to make
the world a better place for all people.

The reality, of course, was that our practical work had little if anything
to do with working-class ideals or goals. Our leader was an incorrigible,
uncontrollable megalomaniac; she was alcoholic, arbitrary, and almost always
angry. Our organization, with the word democratic prominent in its name, was
ultra-authoritarian, completely top down, with no real input or criticism
sought or listened to. Our lives were made up of 18-hour days of busywork
and denunciation sessions. Our world was harsh, barren, and unrewarding. We
were committed and idealistic dreamers who were tricked into believing that
such demanding conditions were necessary to transform ourselves into cadre
fighters. We were instructed that we were the uninstructed and that we must
take all guidance from our leader who knew all. We were never to question
any orders or in any way contradict or confront our leader. We were taught
to dread and fear the outside world which, we were told, would shun and
punish us. In fact, the shunning and punishment was rampant within; but
blinded by our own belief, commitment, and fatigue, in conjunction with the
group's behavior-control techniques, I and the others succumbed to the
pressures and quickly learned to rationalize away any doubts or
apprehensions.

I remained in that group 10 years.

Who Am I?

When I got out of the cult in early 1986, I had to begin life anew. I was a
decade behind in everything. Both my parents had died, and I had lost touch
with former friends. I had to play catch-up, so to speak, culturally,
socially, economically, emotionally, and intellectually. But most important
of all, I had to repair my soul. Who am I? How could I have committed the
many unkind acts while in the group? Where do I belong now? What do I
believe in now? Will I ever restore my faith in myself and in others? These
are the kinds of questions and dilemmas that troubled me. Over time, and
most recently through my contact and work with former members of many types
of cults, I've come to see that the single most uniform aspect of all cult
experiences is that it touches, and usually damages, the soul, the psyche.

Creating A New Personality

All cults, no matter their stripe, are a variation on a theme, for their
common denominator is the use of coercive persuasion and behavior control
without the knowledge of the person who is being manipulated. They manage
this by targeting (and eventually attacking, disassembling, and
reformulating according to the cult's desired image) a person's innermost
self. They take away you and give you back a cult personality, a pseudo
personality. They punish you when the old you turns up, and they reward the
new you. Before you know it, you don't know who you are or how you got
there; you only know (or you are trained to believe) that you have to stay
there. In a cult there is only one way -- cults are totalitarian, a yellow
brick road to serve the leaders whims and desires, be they power, sex, or
money.

When I was in my cult, I so desperately wanted to believe that I had finally
found the answer. Life in our society today can be difficult, confusing,
daunting, disheartening, alarming, and frightening. Someone with a glib
tongue and good line can sometimes appear to offer you a solution. In my
case, I was drawn in by the proposed political solution -- to bring about
social change. For someone else, the focus may be on health, diet,
psychological awareness, the environment, the stars, a spirit being, or even
becoming a more successful business person. The crux is that cult leaders
are adept at convincing us that what they have to offer is special, real,
unique, and forever -- and that we wouldn't be able to survive apart from
the cult. A person's sense of belief is so dear, so deep, and so powerful;
ultimately it is that belief that helps bind the person to the cult. It is
the glue used by the cult to make the mind manipulations stick. It is our
very core, our very belief in ourself and our commitment, it is our very
faith in humankind and the world that is exploited and abused and turned
against us by the cults.

Repairing the Soul

When a person finally breaks from a cultic relationship, it is the soul,
then, that is most in need of repair. When you discover one day that your
guru is a fraud, that the miracles are no more than magic tricks, that the
group's victories and accomplishments are fabrications of an internal public
relations system, that your holy teacher is breaking his avowed celibacy
with every young disciple, that the group's connections to people of import
are nonexistent -- when awareness such as these come upon you, you are faced
with what many have called a spiritual rape. Whether your cultic experience
was religious or secular, the realization of such enormous loss and betrayal
tends to cause considerable pain. As a result, afterwards, many people are
prone to reject all forms of belief. In some cases, it may take years to
overcome the disillusionment, and learn not only to trust in your inner self
but also to believe in something again.

There is also a related difficulty: that persistent nagging feeling that you
have made a mistake in leaving the groups --perhaps the teachings are true
and the leader is right; perhaps it is you who failed. Because cults are so
clever at manipulating certain emotions and events--in particular, wonder,
awe, transcendence, and mystery (this is sometimes called mystical
manipulation) -- and because of the human desire to believe, a former cult
member may grasp at some way to go on believing even after leaving the
group. For this reason, many people today go from one cult to another, or go
in and out of the same cultic group or relationship (known as cult hopping).
Since every person needs something to believe in --a philosophy of life, a
way of being, an organized religion, a political commitment, or a
combination thereof --sorting out these matters of belief tends to be a
major area of adjustment after a cultic experience.

What to Believe in Now?

Since a cult involvement is often an ill-fated attempt to live out some form
of personal belief, the process of figuring out what to believe in once
you've left the cult may be facilitated by dissecting the cult's ideological
system. Do an evaluation of the group's philosophy, attitudes, and
worldview; define it for yourself in your own language, not the language of
the cult. Then see how this holds up against the cult's actual daily
practice or what you now know about the group. For some, it might be useful
to go back and research the spiritual or philosophical system that you were
raised in or believed in prior to the cult involvement. Through this process
you will be better able to assess what is real and what is not, what is
useful and what is not, what is distortion and what is not. By having a
basis for comparison, you will be able to question and explore areas of
knowledge or belief that were no doubt systematically closed to you while in
the cult. Most people who come out of a cultic experience shy away from
organized religion or any kind of organized group for some time. I generally
encourage people to take their time before choosing another religious
affiliation or group involvement. As with any intimate relationship, trust
is reciprocal and must be earned.

After a cult experience, when you wake up to face the deepest emptiness, the
darkest hole, the sharpest scream of inner terror at the deception and
betrayal you feel, I can only offer hope by saying that in confronting the
loss, you will find the real you. And when your soul is healed, refreshed,
and free of the nightmare bondage of cult lies and manipulations, the real
you will find a new path, a valid path--a path to freedom and wholeness.

Janja Lalich is a cult information specialist and consultant in Alameda, CA.
She is co-author with Margaret Singer of Cults in Our Midst: The Hidden
Menace in Our Everyday Lives (Jossey-Bass, 1995).