It’s not a cult

1 Comment » // May 19th, 2011

When you’re in a cult, you don’t know it’s a cult.

For those who have never been in a cult this might be difficult to understand. After all, from the outside it can be obvious when a group is a cult – the crazy, closed language, the zombie-like countenance of the members, the abusive behaviour of the leader. Yet, when I give readings and talks, it’s a topic I feel it’s important to touch on because there is so much misunderstanding, so I thought I should address it here as well.

When someone is in a cult, they believe they are saving the world. Or serving God. Or working for the only purpose on the planet that matters. Those in a cult believe they have found the thing they’ve been searching for all their lives. They believe they have found the answers to all life’s questions. They believe that if only everyone joined the group they’re in, the world would be a much better, safer place. They refer to the group as a “family” or a church or a spiritual home, but never, ever would it cross their minds that they are in a cult.

That’s what I believed when I was in the cult I belonged to in the 1990s. Looooonnng after I’d left the group it still didn’t occur to me that it was a cult. I was three or four years into the recovery process before my thinking switched from, “What is wrong with me that I couldn’t stick it out serving God?” to “Wait a minute – I think that whole situation was totally fucked up. I think it might have been a cult.”

I didn’t leave the group because I figured out it was a cult. When I left the group, I did so because my personal values about compassion and love were not reflected in the way I was acting in the group (or in the way the leader and the group were acting toward one another).

When I left, I went through the same very complex series of mental processes that every cult survivor goes through. I didn’t know what I thought or felt about anything. I had been suppressing my thoughts and feelings for so long that I had to re-learn how to feel and think. I had to examine every belief and piece of knowledge within me and decide if I thought it was true or false based on my understanding of the world or my experiences, and not based on what I had been told I was supposed to think and believe. It was a watershed moment when I realized I’d become adept at thinking and feeling for myself once again and didn’t give a rat’s ass about what my former cult leader said was “The Truth”.

Then, and only then, could I look back at what had happened to me in the “spiritual group” I belonged to and wonder, “What was that?” And that’s when I was able to begin researching cults and recognize that I could indeed apply that label to the experience I had.

If you have recently left a cult, be patient with yourself. Your body and mind can only heal at a rate that is right for you. Give yourself time and space to unwind; your thoughts and feelings will begin to return to you as soon as you are strong enough to embrace them. One day you’ll be able to look back and see your experience with clarity and understand what happened to you.