A secular site promoting use of evidence-based prevention methods to reduce cult victimization
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The Minimum Ingredients Needed to Exit a Cult
Conditions needed for a person to leave a high control group:
1. Courage. A person must be very brave to leave a high control group. It's no easy task to choose to abandon your entire life and start anew alone. Cultists often face loss of job, residency, family and friends if they leave.
2. Critical thinking. A cultist must be ready to think logically. He doesn't have to think 100% logically about every single thing, but he must reach the critical mass of logical, honest examination of one's beliefs and a desire to verify and believe facts.
3. Strong desire to have a more authentic, happy life. Again, he will need a critical mass of a desire to change. This could come from a decreased willingness to continue one's high control lifestyle, or there could be an immediate motivator, such as a major bullying incident or scandal.
4. Humility. It takes honesty with oneself and a willingness to admit, to oneself and others, that he was wrong.
In my experience, if a person does not have enough of all four of these, he will either not leave at all, or he will relapse after a brief soiree into normal life. The latter will be used by him as evidence that leaving is the wrong thing to do.
I recommend any efforts to help someone exit are all focused on increasing the above four conditions. Doctrinal debates and other in-depth critiques of the group can provide Condition #3, but alone they will definitely fall sort of effecting change.
1. Courage. A person must be very brave to leave a high control group. It's no easy task to choose to abandon your entire life and start anew alone. Cultists often face loss of job, residency, family and friends if they leave.
2. Critical thinking. A cultist must be ready to think logically. He doesn't have to think 100% logically about every single thing, but he must reach the critical mass of logical, honest examination of one's beliefs and a desire to verify and believe facts.
3. Strong desire to have a more authentic, happy life. Again, he will need a critical mass of a desire to change. This could come from a decreased willingness to continue one's high control lifestyle, or there could be an immediate motivator, such as a major bullying incident or scandal.
4. Humility. It takes honesty with oneself and a willingness to admit, to oneself and others, that he was wrong.
In my experience, if a person does not have enough of all four of these, he will either not leave at all, or he will relapse after a brief soiree into normal life. The latter will be used by him as evidence that leaving is the wrong thing to do.
I recommend any efforts to help someone exit are all focused on increasing the above four conditions. Doctrinal debates and other in-depth critiques of the group can provide Condition #3, but alone they will definitely fall sort of effecting change.
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