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How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?
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Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I'm not even left or right but just pointing out that MAGA, who worships hypermasculinity and claims to be the party of God, seems to rile some folks up who can't come to terms with reality.
They make a demigod out of a fat lifelong Democrat in makeup who wrote in a book that if he ever ran for office he'd run as a Republican because they lack independent thought and effectively fall in line. They literally worshipped and prayed to a golden statue of him, which makes the whole story about the golden calf somewhat ironic.
Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, you should! This could also be a guide for how to win elections. But it's a huge undertaking. Learning their mythology and being dispassionately conversant in it is not easy. To completely erase your ego and work only in pursuit of manipulation... Well, it's no surprise to me that it's a job, and that they aren't trying to do it on their own families. It's not clear you should try to do that to your own family.…
I would be curious how these conversations with maga families would go if one truly adopted the methodology of the men mentioned in the article. I liked they philosophy of basically engaging in deep, true good faith understanding of the person's view and group, as well as for the deprogrammer, leaving as much of your personal beliefs at the door, and accepting that you can't really know truth, that truth is more a fe…
> I'm by no means an expert in this and in fact I hunger for these conversations so I can learn more about how to bridge the gap, so I can dig to the material conditions issues underlying the vast majority of most Trump supporter's concerns. The whole "drain the swamp thing," I mean, was it wrong? The entire government seems to have been cozied up with Israel at best and Epstein at worst! So how do you get to talking about that with them to where you get them to understand that their favorite republican politicians fall right into that pool, without first acknowledging the reality that the same is true for politicians "on your side?"
Something I've noticed is that a lot of conspiracy theory is "exactly wrong": people will identify something which does have a real true problem to it, usually to do with elite unaccountability or widespread public lying, and then - without evidence, or using one extremely flimsy link - attach it to someone who least represents that problem. Thereby effectively covering up for all the other crimes.
Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?
#34Interesting read. Framing things as a "cultic relationship" makes a lot of sense to me. The part about using your experience as a basis of truth determination being flawed and a source of vulnerability also was pretty insightful.
I'm a little surprised by mention of pushback and accusations of being cult apologists, only because what they're describing as their method is pretty similar in principle to some widespread and empirically validated therapies for more common things. It's just much more invasive, to understate things. I guess at some point there are probably basic immediate safety issues that arise, where taking time has its own risks.
The piece left me thinking that the reasons people become involved with and attached to cults might not be different at some fundamental level from a lot of other psychological problems they get themselves in — just a matter of degree or pervasiveness.
Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?
#35I’d strongly recommend the documentary “Behind the Curve”. The close look at people in (not quite a cult) gave me a visceral appreciation for what draws people to it (it provides acceptance for people who sorely lack it) and why it can be so hard to leave (one’s identity becomes so tied up in it).
Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?
#36I went down the rabbit hole of researching both cults and deprogramming groups a few years ago and one of the things which I found remarkable was how much overlap in methods there was between the two. Different groups go to different extremes, but the overlap between the two is such that in many cases they can only be distinguished using social context, and in some cases I am pretty sure the deprogramming groups are in fact cults masquerading as groups to help former cult members because those make the best members for new cults.
Interesting space. I'm glad I don't have any personal reason to be involved.
Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I've seen a lot of Antifa things. They're into anti-MAGA things, have some kind of uniforms and merch and are actually quite violent. In certain places they are very visible, and aggressive. They are a good fit for a discussion about cults. I agree with the authors of the article. By being nice to them I broke some of them a little bit out of their loop.
Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?
#38Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?
#39For those who are interested:
I recently read the book "Combatting Cult Mind Control" by Steven Hassan, a professional who also helps people leave cults. His approach isn't as much of a "long game" as Ryan and Kelly's approach. One thing that Hassan explains is that MLMs are often very similar to cults, and he also explains the difference between cults and religion.
Another book to read is The Running Grave by Robert Galabraith (pen name for J.K. Rownling.) One of the detectives joins a cult to try and get someone out. The book is well researched and gives an insider's view of a cult.
Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?
#40The best thing I have ever read on this subject is https://harpers.org/archive/2013/11/the-man-who-saves-you-fr... - it is a truly wild ride, profiling David Sullivan, a private investigator who specialized in helping people get their loved ones out of cults and was based in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years.