Have you ever had the thought, "I'm approximately one emotional breakdown away from joining a cult."? No? Just me? Cool.
Here's the thing: cults are intriguing as hell. I could sit and watch documentaries about cults for...ever. How and why do so many people get so caught up in the insanity? How can people not see that they are being manipulated? Would I fall for this shit if I stumbled upon it? THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS I WISH TO EXPLORE WHILE SITTING ON MY COUCH FOR HOURS.
Lucky for me and my cult-loving ass, a recent Reddit thread spilled the tea on some cults. User mykewamb asked people to share times they found themselves asking, "wait, is this a cult?" and boy oh boy did they deliver. Here are my ten favorite!
1. ravioli63 has made me even more afraid of boarding schools.
“Therapeutic” boarding school. The first night I got there, everyone told me how I’d “get used to everything”. And I did, I fell into their trap. I didn’t realize how messed up it was until the school got shut down by the FBI and the owner got charged with child endangerment and molesting a student.
2. blackholedaughter lowkey witnessed some exorcist shit.
College friend invited me to a service at her new church. Later told me that the "church" met in a barn, and they spent their last service literally vomiting up their demons. 50 or so people holy-vomiting all at once.
3. SilverFox785 proves that not even our stuffed animals are safe.
When my Latin club sacrificed a stuffed animal before finals to pray to the gods for good grades
4. The-Traveler-Writes dodged the pyramid scheme.
My parents were part of Amway. It is a pyramid scheme, of course, but it's also extremely religious. I would even classify it as it's own denomination of Christianity. They used to have to do "meetings," in which they tried to rope friends and family and total strangers they met at work into doing Amway, too, which began and ended with prayer, even if the people weren't religious or Christian. They would literally pray for money and wealth.
Amway worked like a private country within America; it even had it's own movies, music, and celebrities. You don't see all that from the outside. It's not until you're deep into it that you realize how hard they pound this crap into people. It's a miracle my parents decided to give it up.
5. nicknaklmao saw through the flirting tactic.
When I was in middle school, a Jehovah's Witness family showed up amd enrolled their kids in public school. One of them, a fairly attractive boy, started flirting with me. I'd always been that "weird" girl in school, so I obviously fell for him.
He told me he wasn't allowed to "date," per se, but he was allowed to invite people to his church and if I went with him, we could hang out and it would be just like a date. I went with him, and that day they were talking about how if you join the church, you cannot speak with apostates or any of your family not in the Witnesses. I knew enough about cults for that to be a bigass red flag.
I was still interested in him, though. When he asked me to go again, I politely declined, because churchy stuff had never been my speed. Instead, I suggested we sneak out one night and meet. He did, and I used my allowance to get us tickets to some movie.
I didn't see him for years after that. His family just vanished. The next time I saw him, it was in a mall. I went up and said hi, only for his grandmother to yank him away snarling not to speak with "that filthy whore."
Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but I think he was only allowed to flirt with me because they were trying to convert me and my family. In my community, we were pretty well known- my father was the fire chief and in a small town like this, that's a big deal. I still wonder what happened to him, though.
6. Tofon comes in hot with this plot twist.
I used to work for this company that turned out to be very cultish. I probably should have known better, but I was young and naive. They're a well known organization and I thought they did a lot of good things at the time, and it was my first job after high school so I didn't really know any better.
The first red flag was on my first day I had to take an "oath" and repeat after this guy leading it in a room full of strangers, but I just chalked it up to being an old but slightly weird tradition (it is a pretty old organization). After that we had a mandatory orientation, and that's when things got really weird. First of all, it was being held in practically the middle of nowhere. Like legitimately out in the woods. When we got there we were totally isolated and then they took our phones, made us all dress the same, walk in a certain way, only respond in a certain way, follow directions, and memorize a bunch of company stuff. They used to not feed us until we could chant back the company mission statement without messing it up. They also shaved all our heads on the first day and constantly made us do physical exercises as punishment. After that things got better, but it was still a very weird place to work. They preferred to have employees living only around other employees and would even offer to help cover the cost of living if we moved into company sponsored buildings together. We still did a lot of weird company retreats where we could go back out into secluded areas and do "company training" that was really just glorified camping on company time. We also still had to know the mission statement and company guidelines, and would get reprimanded if we didn't. They were also super strict about everyone dressing/appearing the same. I saw people getting into trouble over things like haircuts and dirty shoes.
Anyways, the Army wasn't so bad overall, but I'm glad to be in college now.
7. its_meme got out before shit hit the fan.
I went to a small women's college in Virginia. I only stayed a semester because the group mentality. They would constant rituals that were not "mandatory" but you were weird if you didn't go. One alone wasn't weird but collectively it was too much. Example: One founders day, everyone wore white. We went to the chapel for the ceremony and then walked 2 miles to the graveyard, where the founders were buried. We all had to lay roses on the graves and sing the school's song. Four girls in my class tried to commit suicide in the first semester. My class only had 64 girls. If you discussed transferring the dean of students and the school's counselor would threaten to have you put in a mental hospital for 72 hours. I transferred in secret so no one would find out. I didn't even tell my friends. I would wake up at 4am and transfer stuff from my dorm room to be shipped home.
TL;DR Went to a women's college and if you didn't conform, the dean of students would threaten to put you in a mental institution
8. Yes_pleasedaddy said no thank you, mommy.
Joined a mom group when I was having my first child. It was a "crunchy" mom group.... for those who don't know a crunchy mom is kind of like a hipster mom. Mom groups can get pretty cult like.
I joined the group because of shared ideas. Bedsharing, extended breastfeeding, cloth diapering stuff like that. Well I gave up on cloth diapering and those moms went nuts. They staged an intervention with me and pretty much wouldn't let me leave until I put my kid in a cloth. And that's only some of the things.
9. nepworks1 has an important cautionary tale for us.
Was an edgy teenager. Got bullied a lot. Didn't have someone to give me any wisdom. Turned to people who sympathized with me and looked out for me.
Look, it called itself the "Church Of Creativity." That hardly sounds like a hate group's name. They constantly said that they were a peaceful religion and not a hate group. It was based on science, and evolution, not hate, right? It was mostly just talking about movies or hunting or school with other, kind white people.
Except you were recommended to refuse to associate with "muds." If the cashier at a store was black, you'd go to a different register. If the person serving you was Mexican, you'd eat somewhere else. It was constantly hammered in that the church didn't hate them, it pitied them. They didn't choose to be inferior, right? It's just nature. Sure, the founder of the organization built a compound where he trained young boys to survive after the apocalypse. But that's just about being a man, right? Totally not preperation for racial holy war.
Thankfully, I broke away from those people when I was about 16. And then my only real friend in Basic Training was a black Buddhist. It kinda made me reconsider my views of people. I am not ashamed of my involvement in that organization. They used predatory tactics to bring in young men and slowly turn them toward hate. I walked away before I did something stupid. Being ashamed of it won't mean it didn't happen, so I might as well own up to it and make sure other people are aware that organizations like this exist.
It wasn't until a few years ago that I actually realized how cultish their practices were. Parents, if your kids start talking about Ben Klassen, take away their computer.
10. TyrionBananaster gets the gold for this The Office reference.
I’ve been involved in a number of cults, both as a leader and a follower. You have more fun as a follower, but you make more money as a leader.