If you belong to a cult, can you be expected to be objective about identifying that you indeed belong to one?

Question

just sayin.

Answer 1

I don't think a person who's been indoctrinated into any cult-like community can be objective about much, to be honest. The brain is a funny thing. It can be easily effected by others.

But I get the thrust of your question, and I'm with you. A person who is brainwashed cannot be expected to tell objectively that he or she has been brainwashed, nor can they be expected to realize that the community around them isn't right in the collective head. :)

Answer 2

Cult is a loaded and subjective term. To be objective about identifying a cult, you have define one. I don't have a good definition, but I tend to think a group is a cult when you can't get an opinion out of it's members--all they have is a quote from the leader.

Answer 3

Of course not. It's a relatively short period since I left the JW's, so I can still remember how I felt to be one. I was so completely involved that I thought that any attempts by others to help me see sense were the machinations of Satan; a thought the society actively encouraged, along with threats of ostracisation and destruction and Armageddon if you left. As somebody else has said, you have to be out of the trees to see that you were in a forest. It is only since I left that I can see that the organisation is a cult, adopting many of the accepted cult behaviours to maintain membership. Now I make it my business to try and make a clearing in the forest so that people can hopefully see just where they are and find the way out.

Answer 4

I was a member of a Church that had cult like characteristics, we were not allowed to visit any other Church, we were told when to fast, when to pray, not to watch T.V. and the Pastor would drop by to check to see if our T.V. was on. We were told what to eat & when to eat ,what to pray for how to pray (laying face down on the floor) as soon as waking up at half an hour early before going to the bathroom for a full half an hour,could not go to the bathroom until after we prayed. We lived in our own homes and he would not have known but we did as we were told. Many left in groups. I was in the third group and there were three more groups afterwards. There are very few still at that Church that were still there when I was a Member but there are a few. There are others that replaced us. While I was a member No One, I repeat NO ONE who could convience me that I was in a Cult. Many people tried. It was only after my Step- Mother died and the Pastor told me that He would pay my Step-Sister back the money for my plane fair not to go to Az. to help my then 87 year old Father! Then my eyes were opened! I left that Church and I never looked back!

Answer 5

It's very difficult, and often requires outside intervention. One characteristic of cults is to isolate the cult member from outside influences which might lead the member away, like family and friends and prior acquaintences. The cult member becomes totally dependent on the cult for social interaction. Cults typically use some sort of threat of punishment if you leave. In mild cases, it is the (often overstated) threat of ostracism (to which the non-cultist says "so?"). In extreme cases the threat is of violence and even death (as is the case with the cult of Islam)

Answer 6

Not if you're already in one, no. By then the only solution is to physically separate themselves from it's members and stop going.

Then work on getting the spiritual and emotional damage the cult has caused eliminated as much as possible by seeing a therapist and/or pastor/priest., family & friends, etc.

Answer 7

Anything that is not COMMON or ORTHODOX to ANY Culture is a CULT to itself. In the religion section, my position concerning Scripture, is that if one does NOT identify themselves as part of an exclusive group, THEY are on the BROAD PATH that leads to destruction. WHile they may say I belong to a cult, in their definition they are wrong, in mine, I appreciate their comment.

Answer 8

Of course not. Cult members never say "Yeah, this thing is just a cult, but I like it here."

Cult members are all brainwashed into thinking what others want them to think. One of their hallmarks is that they are discouiraged from intermingling socially with non-cult members.

Answer 9

No a cult is always something someone else belongs to.

Answer 10

Not in the slightest.
I have yet to see someone say" I am in a cult, But that is what I chose and I like it that way"