They're individual testimonies, often nearly impossible to verify, and written in an era where "autofiction" and "creative non-fiction" are mature commercial genres with their own tropes, standards, forms, and conceits.
If you're intellectually curious about "cults, scams, and schemes", there's a whole other -- drier but more earnest -- world of nonfiction to be found in places like JSTOR or the catalogs of academic presses.
In contrast, memoir is often simply held to the standard of "is there strong and ready evidence against this claim, or can it at least hold up as the author's subjective interpretation of some event" because it's purpose and history as a genre is entirely different. Its audiences aren't academic peers hungry for material against which they can safely anchor their own work, but tens of thousands of airplane readers who are hungry for titillation or personal relatability.
Another great one: The Confidence Game by Maria Konnikova.
The single most glaring omission is the absence of "Combating Cult Mind Control" by Steven Hassan. This is the first book to read or listen to about cults, full stop.
His other books ("The Cult of Trump" and "Freedom of Mind") are solid, too.
He demands loyalty, acts as he wills and humiliates anyone who leaves.
These organizations can be an amazing vehicle for personal and spiritual transformation, and yet can be so dangerous and destructive if you let them override your personal judgment and recognition of what you actually want in life, and preventing you from looking outside...
I was in one such organization. I initially felt that my life improved greatly... but in the long term the "cultish" aspects ended up having negative effects on me (for one I got into debt thinking it would help me, and thinking that I "needed" them and couldn't see possibilities outside. At my "lowest" I remember walking into a library and being afraid of picking up any books not suggested by them )
Many people, coming from such "cults", report how early-on the techniques and teachings really helped them (which is what got them hooked). AND ALSO plenty of people stay their whole lives because they continue to find them highly beneficial! ... but not everyone
Something I came to understand is that different people have different spiritual and life paths -- and so the one-size-fits-all approach of these organizations might not be appropriate for everyone.
Yet, they basically tell you to "trust the process", to effectively suspend judgment (which actually kind of makes sense -- if you assume they indeed have "a path" very different from what you have done your whole life, maybe your current judgment might indeed not be able to grasp it...) But if you are too "open" to every single thing the leader says, you might absorb ideas that are not good for you based on who you are and where you currently are in your life (or in some cases ideas that are not good for anyone lol) -- this is especially true if you can't directly talk to the leader to clarify.
Confusingly, many of these realizations I had echo certain "teachings" I have heard within the organization, even though apparently contradicted by other teachings or attitudes. "Ultimately you should listen to your self; use your discernment; do what feels right" but then also implying that you should be doing all the things they tell you to do, and if you're not successful it's because you're not doing enough and making you feel guilty (and there is a lot of things you're "suggested" to do; practically impossible to be doing everything). "You should learn from everyone" but also --> heavily implying that you shouldn't read books or listen to teachers that weren't vetted by the group, lest it lead you astray.
Overall, I think my time in this group was important to my life journey, and that I was transformed in positive ways and learned a lot, but that I "overstayed my time" and should have looked at other things way earlier, and that there are things I have yet to learn that are best learned from other sources. I still think there was a lot of very positive things in that organization, and thinking maybe one day I might rejoin -- just I would need to be very careful and intentional about what my goal is for doing so.
Maybe HN is not the best place to ask this, but are there books that explore these "cults" from a more neutral or "dual" angle like this? Could it be possible to create such a spiritual-adjacent group providing a lot of the benefits of a "cult" without the negative aspects?
In any case, some of the books posted here look interesting and I'll look into them.
But it's not informative about cults in the slightest. It's just a caricature of what "satanic panic" [1] people thought a cult was.
Real cults are much more normal, which is why they are so easy to accidentally fall into. The worst cults have pretty mainstream acceptance. Often, they are simply break-offs of already well accepted religions.
I loved the break down of how Scientology finds people. The simplicity is stunning.
People need connection, they need to feel important and that they have agency. Feeling "smart", better than, a member of... feels good.
Promises of a simple, easy, known path to getting what you want will always be appealing.
Figuring it out for yourself will always be harder.
It's no surprise that people take the easy route.
Just in case anyone here finds themselves falling into their world I'll save you $0.5M: all your problems are caused by you being infested with murdered space aliens
If you enjoyed it, please note that Lawrence Wright has written several other equally fantastic books. He also wrote The Looming Tower, on the runup to 9/11. It covers the geopolitics that led to Islamic fanaticism as well as the intelligence failures in the US that allowed the attacks to happen. I believe fully and unironically that it ought to be required reading.
Doesn't sound much different from the Abrahamic religions.
One was a friend who got into it in high school and said I could get in on it too for 100 USD (~2004). Another was a random stranger I struck up a conversation with at a bookstore in around 2011. The last was an old boss, who attributes his drastic weight loss to a strange drug that he's peddling and says I can get in on.
It's crazy. I was 17, 24 and 37 and all 3 times I knew there was something super suspicious about these and never engaged.
And yes, I'd call several mainstream religions cults because of this. I'd not argue that something isn't a cult if they don't fit this definition, but a very large number of the most damaging cults do have this behavior.
Not everyone or every group that exhibits some of these behaviors is going to be a cult. But the warning signs are something everyone should be aware of.
[0] https://freedomofmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/The-BIT...
- The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan, about the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. A lot of people were scammed into settling the high plains by railroad salesmanship and other "real estate" scams.
- The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown. A book about the harrowing Donner Party. Scamming and scheming are what draw them out to that expedition.
- The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. WW1 history but it boils down to the scheming of various men in the respective countries.
- The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, Daniel Yergin. The oil rush from America to the World. Scheming features prominently to say the least.
Of course now it's used on everyone who uses smartphones and social media.
It's a Brave New World, and you're carrying the main tool to mind control you in your pocket. Bonus, you probably pay for it too!
Metaphorical language, of which French is a rich source, often prevents native speakers from understanding. Literal translations are of no avail.
> avant la lettre : before the letter : before the (specified) word or concept existed [0]
[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/avant%20la%20lett...
But the unanswered philosophical problem is if you actually believe in those things doesn’t some level of fanaticism make sense?
In 2026 so we are so divorced from organizations and non-secular sources of information that I don’t think we can even talk about the subject. A 1950s neighborhood bowling club looks like a jihadist training camp from our completely detached ways of living.
Why? There are still bowling clubs? People just organize themselves into more hobbies and sometimes even virtual communities than before.
The article isn’t about subject matter.
Virtual communities require no group sacrifice. You join the lobby and you leave. Maybe there are some niche WOW guilds out there.
OK but those without dignity here are the ones acting like that, not the person leaving.
> And yes, I'd call several mainstream religions cults because of this.
Oh definitely. And it's disgusting that their hate speech is protected because it's religious.
The reason cults severely punish ex members is to protect the flock. They don't want their members to learn from ex members real criticisms of the cult.
It's precisely so when books like mentioned in this thread come up, the cult can say "oh, that's just a bad ex member who's lying".
The idea of "forbidden knowledge" is pretty unique to cults. You won't find, for example, a Methodist church that tells you not to read exmethodist books (do they even exist?). Heck, they probably wouldn't even get upset if you read something like "The god delusion".
Which ones ? Not something I have seen myself
I do like your definition. Its a pretty clear and meaningful distinction and linked to other cult behaviours such as encouraging members to cease contact with ex-members.
1. love bombing
- make you feel welcome/loved/accepted
- lots of attention etc
2. isolation
- "you weren't appreciated before so why hang out with those people"
- "your family didn't understand you, but we do so stay with us"
3. control
- "we have your best interests at heart so you should do X"
- etc
I agree, but I'd say a lot of the BITE attributes can be damaging regardless of whether or not the group rises to the level of cult. If your group is doing stuff in BITE you really should be questioning "why" and thinking about whether or not the group policing is actually good for you.
Thanks!
Time is still a sacrifice in any group activity.
To give one example. The Boy Scouts is a relatively tame org. It has different offices, voting, treasury, awards, oaths, meeting notes. All of that is basically dead, but was in full swing at that time.
The main difference is that in countries with shariah, apostasy is not just a sin, it's a criminal offense.
There's a bunch of Muslim countries with Sharia not in criminal law but in marriage, maybe that's what you mean.
> among Islamic jurists, the majority of them continue to regard apostasy as a crime which should be punishable by death
How many mainstream Jewish or Christian groups advocate for that?
Not my experience of the Catholic Church at all, having left it myself (and getting married in a registry office etc.), and having friends who have done so in more than one country. Not one of us as had any friend or relative hold it against us.
It might be a feature of a particular region or culture, or reflective of controlling family, but not of the Catholic Church in general.
I was raised Southern Baptist. When I stopped going, the church contacted me a couple of times to say they missed us and asked if everything was OK, and to say they'd love to have us back if we wanted to come back sometime. My parents weren't thrilled but that's less religion, more family dynamics: it was much the same when they found out I didn't support their preferred political party anymore. That was about it, though. The church didn't lean on us in any way, or tell people to stop talking to us, or use any other means to cajole or punish us.
My thinking on cults is very similar to all this, plus another distinguisher. A cult typically requires you to join before you get all the information about what you're signing up for. I've never been a Muslim, but know that if you walk into a mosque, someone will cheerfully greet you and load you up with a Koran and all kinds of other reading material. Same with any mainstream Protestant church, or the Catholic church, or Hindu, or Buddhist, etc. In fact, many/most churches won't let you join until you've shown that you understand that church's beliefs. Compare and contrast with, say, Scientology, which is notoriously different.
Southern Baptists officially teach that eternal damnation is a literal, conscious, and everlasting punishment in Hell for anyone who dies without personal faith and salvation in Jesus Christ. If the threat of eternal torment is not coercive control, I'm not sure what is.
I also disagree that Catholic church happily gives you all the information upfront. I didn't grow up Catholic but my parents did, and at least back then Catholic teachings (they both went to Catholic school) very heavily discouraged individuals from reading the Bible. My parents also grew up going to mass in Latin, a language they don't understand. Things are different nowadays.
" Almost completely wrong (ask your parents, astura).
It is true that the Catholic Church did not emphasize the Old Testament (OT). They instead emphasized the New Testament (NT) (both NT and OT are parts of the Bible). We were educated about the Protestant Reformation and the differences in faiths. I think the problem is that the Catholic Church has generated so much structure and associated doctrine that they barely have time for OT! In any case, much of this fell into one or more of my Church History classes, hardly my favorite subject.
FWIW I had a completely Catholic education from grade school thru university and nobody ever refrained from referencing the Bible. I've long since left the faith but I kept my sense of humor. Here's my favorite OT joke:
Q: Who's the strongest man man in the Bible (hint: it isn't Samson)?
A: Abraham. He tied his ass to a tree and walked up a mountain!
As for the Latin mass, yes it was there, and if you wanted to know what was said then you could always find out - nobody was hiding anything. I was an "altar boy" (assisted the priest in the rituals) so I learned the Latin mass and, since I went to Catholic schools, I later studied Latin. Latin is a useful language to know as an English speaker and it helps in understanding the so-called "romance languages" (it even aids in understanding English - many word roots are from Latin).
FWIW the traditional Latin mass is still celebrated! Some have stuck to the old Latin rites b/c of their love of the old rituals, the music is better in Latin (got to agree on this one!), etc.
You have to be careful with blanket statements like this. Southern Baptist churches are entirely self-run enterprises with no top-down doctrinal control from anyone else. Consequently, there are congregations who would qualify as high-control, culty organizations and there are congregations who welcome LGBTQ folks and such (although it's increasingly true that welcoming / progressive congregations are self-sorting into their own categories/groupings such as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship).
I don't know of any SB churches that preach specifically that THEIR church is the One True Church, which is usually what that kind of control requires.
Certainly many folks in the SBC church of my youth moved from church to church, or even to other denominations, and nobody thought that was soul-risking behavior. A central tenet of MOST Baptist churches is the primacy of the adherent's personal relationship to the almighty, which is unknowable to others by default, so this tracks.
> If the threat of eternal torment is not coercive control, I'm not sure what is.
If you cease to believe in it why would it bother you? If they do not try to cut you off etc. after you leave its very different from cults that order you family to cease contact.
Leaving whatever you define as your family is always difficult.
The rhetoric from the DNC and Republicans can get pretty out there but I don't think anyone thinks of DNC or Republican party members as their actual family ( I hope )
Perhaps if you are saying attacks of politicians switching parties, which I could see. But I don't think I've ever heard of republicans talking about exrepublicans or democrats talking about exdemocrats. I personally have switched from voting republican to voting democrat. It's not something my family really cares about and I still have good relations with them even though a number of them are pretty MAGA.
Cults will actually have lessons and classes about the evils of ex members. Someone brought up JWs and that's a pretty good example of what I'm thinking of.
Deuteronomy 13:6–11
I am one of those apostates and there is some social shaming that I can mostly ignore, but so far no one called for my murder or imprisonment.
I was raised in an SBC church, though I've long since come to my senses. I have plenty of issues with such places, but your average Baptist church -- even ones still proudly tied to the SBC -- does not meet any of the criteria usually offered for cult status.
Latin prayer books usually have the translation side by side. Attendants of the traditional Mass find value in it - it's truly Catholic since you take part into it like anybody else worldwide, praying the same prayers, regardless of your native language, that have been prayed over the last ~5 centuries, some of which are 10, 15 or almost 20 centuries old.
<conspiracy_theory> The Vatican Council II's original purpose wasn't in fact to abolish the traditional Mass, but to help with increasingly difficult evangelization. What happened was instead largely due to the worldwide infiltration of the Church by the freemasons. </conspiracy_theory>
<reality_check> Pope John Paul I publicly declared upon being elected, that he'd expose and get rid of them - freemasons weren't in fact allowed as members the Church - priests, bishops, cardinals - and have never been, since they are obviously against the Church, but he knew they were there still.
On the evening before he died, the Pope received Pecorelli, a journalist that was a member of the masonic P2 lodge, who famously gave him a list of Catholic bishops and cardinals that were members of the freemasonry.
The Pope died a few hours after reading his list, his death never really investigated. The list disappeared; Pecorelli died a few months later in a car accident.
The P2 lodge was involved in other scandals, and as a consequence, some of its then members' names were exposed, and are now public - including some of the most powerful Italian politicians, entrepreneurs etc. of the time; now, after four decades, most of them are dead anyway - everything else is history.
Freemasonry in Italy came well before they entered the Vatican though - it's not even too far fetched to think that Italy itself was created by them - Garibaldi was the founder of the main Italian FM branch, of which he became the Grand Master (with the "33th degree") - the Grande Oriente d'Italia. Mazzini and other famous "fathers of the country" were also freemasons as well.
Ironically, Freemasonry - probably the most powerful, concealed, deceiving cult in the world - has not even a minor mention in this list. <sad /> </reality_check>
You can read about all of this on Wikipedia and elsewhere.
Dude, My parents are in their 70s and haven't been practicing Catholics in 50+ years, they don't know the current teachings. It's a fact that at the time they went to Catholic school they very heavily discouraged individuals from reading the Bible. That's a fact.
* Their political parties
* Their religions
* Their diets (meat => vegan, or vice versa)
* Their music
* Their computer OS
None of those compare to cult shunning, which is more systematic and absolute. I mentioned in another comment that my parents were sad when I stopped going to church. That's got nothing on having one's entire family and support groups ceasing to publicly acknowledge their existence.
I absolutely disagree. I’ve seen cult shunning and if there is a version which has mass appeal now it’s politics.