How Cults Gain Power Over an Individual: A True Story
When I heard Diane Benscoter’s TEDTalk, I felt like I was listening to myself. Like Diane, I was a 17-year-old idealist when I was recruited into a group I would later call a cult. In 1997, I was attending a holy-ghost filled church in a small town in California where I was introduced to a group called Master’s Commission. They were “disciples” of Christ and used terms like “sold out” and “on fire”; terms I was familiar with from my upbringing in a charismatic church. Despite some familiar traits, this group was different. Almost immediately, the Master’s Commission disciples had me convinced that, by joining them, I would be joining an elite group of soldiers for Christ that would change the world by drawing people closer to God. As “soldiers” we would go to the ends of the Earth, using any means necessary to bring people to salvation. Within weeks I submitted my life to their cause and gave up my dreams to follow theirs.
What makes a bright young woman join a cult and sacrifice her life to someone else’s dreams? For starters, nobody joins a “cult.” From the outside Master’s Commission looked like the quickest path to change the world. Though, once I was inside the group things began to take a dark turn. I was instructed to burn my possessions and dig a grave where my “old self” would be buried. Later, I had to wear a paper mask in public with my sins written all over it. This was not the dream I had for my life when I first encountered the group.
Brainwashing works in a layering process. First, the victim is isolated; second, limits are placed on what they see, hear and do; and finally, the person doing the brainwashing raises uncertainty about the victim’s old beliefs and habits. In the book Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control, Kathleen Taylor says there “… is a systematic processing of noncompliant human beings which, if successful, refashions their very identities.” In order to refashion my identity, I was taken through a series of rituals and events that would reshape me into a compliant individual.