Speaker 1: All the media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Andrew of the
Speaker 2: YouTube channel Andrewism and I'm here.
Speaker 3: With Garrison Davis is also here. Hello, Welcome, Welcome. You
Speaker 3: don't want to think about recently?
Speaker 2: Cults?
Speaker 3: Oh, one of one of my favorite topics culture, culture, fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean the term cult is in some
Speaker 2: ways just another pejorative for, you know, a group that
Speaker 2: you don't like. Sure, you know, culture personality. Could we
Speaker 2: use to describe a very passionate fan base. We use
Speaker 2: cult classic to talk about, you know, really well known
Speaker 2: and renowned pieces of media. You know, cults could also
Speaker 2: actually ReFood high control groups that ruin people's lives, you know,
Speaker 2: So that's something to consider. Yes, I know that there's
Speaker 2: some debate within sociology but or should we use it,
Speaker 2: should we not use it? But I don't think the
Speaker 2: occasional misapplications of the term should distract us from the
Speaker 2: very real cults that have existed or do exist out there.
Speaker 2: Cults not just in the context of religion, but also
Speaker 2: in the context of politics.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, there's a I can I can think of many
Speaker 3: many a political cult that rears it ZI whenever there's
Speaker 3: a Popular Uprising.
Speaker 2: And plent recently recently picked up on the Edge Political
Speaker 2: Cults Left and Right by Dennis Turisch and Tim Wilford.
Speaker 2: And as I was going through it and going through
Speaker 2: all the different examples and stuff, it really gave me
Speaker 2: a clearer sense of how political cults operate. And so
Speaker 2: today I'd like to take some time to discuss nature
Speaker 2: of photical cults, and perhaps in future episodes we can
Speaker 2: dive into some specific examples and case studies, of which
Speaker 2: there are several, and many of them seem to be
Speaker 2: of the Trotskyist variety.
Speaker 3: Let me ask my commander in chief, Bob, Actually, if
Speaker 3: I'm allowed to talk about this before I continue continue
Speaker 3: this episode.
Speaker 2: Visionists, revisionists everywhere?
Speaker 3: No continue please?
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, first, I guess we need to understand what
Speaker 2: cults are in general. Typically, culture defined as a relatively
Speaker 2: small group which is typically led by a charismatic and
Speaker 2: self appointed leader who excessively controls its members, requiring unwavering
Speaker 2: devotion to a set of religious, spiritual, philosophical beliefs and practices,
Speaker 2: or a particular person, object or goal which is considered
Speaker 2: outside the norms of society. The American Family Foundation find
Speaker 2: cults as a group of a group or movement exhibiting
Speaker 2: great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea,
Speaker 2: or thing, and employing unethical, manipulative, or cohesive techniques of
Speaker 2: persuasion and control, for example, isolation from former friends and family, debilitation,
Speaker 2: use of special methods to heighten suggestibility in subservience, powerful
Speaker 2: group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment,
Speaker 2: promotion of total dependence in the group, and fear of
Speaker 2: leaving it designed to advance the goal to the group's leaders,
Speaker 2: the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, of
Speaker 2: the community. We can also define cults as organizations that
Speaker 2: remold individuality to conform to the codes and needs of
Speaker 2: the cult, institute taboos that preclude doubt and criticism, and
Speaker 2: generate an elitist mentality, whereby members see themselves as loan
Speaker 2: evangelists struggling to bring enlightenment to the hostile forces surrounding them.
Speaker 2: There is only one truth, and that is the truth
Speaker 2: espoused by the cult. Competing explanations are not merely inaccurate,
Speaker 2: but degenerate cults don't have opponents, They have enemies and
Speaker 2: frequently dream about their ultimate destruction. Now, cults are usually
Speaker 2: associated with religion, particularly of the New Age Who and
Speaker 2: self help variety. Sometimes it even gets into the kind
Speaker 2: of multi level marketing schemes of business trainer or.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, the lines between MLMs, primitive schemes and
Speaker 2: cultures quite blaard disappoint essential oils all that stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very fluid, dynamic because no it in practice,
Speaker 3: a lot of those if they are not cults themselves,
Speaker 3: they do pick up a lot of like cult ish tactics, behavior,
Speaker 3: kind of loads of modes of interaction.
Speaker 2: Honestly, could apply. That's a lot of businesses these days.
Speaker 2: I mean I've seen more than a handful of medium
Speaker 2: articles like this is why you should run your business
Speaker 2: like a cult. Here seven cult tactics that you could
Speaker 2: apply to your business to generate more productivity. Kind of
Speaker 2: classic LinkedIn style stuff. Yeah. So in two thousand, which
Speaker 2: is when the book Political Cults Left and Right was published,
Speaker 2: it's cited that as many as four million Americans may
Speaker 2: have been involved with cult groups, and they were around
Speaker 2: five hundred cults active in Britain at the time, and
Speaker 2: between three and five thousand in the United States, And honestly,
Speaker 2: that can be an understatement.
Speaker 3: Especially nowadays, even just with like how the Internet has
Speaker 3: changed social interactions. Yeah, Like, it's a lot of aspects
Speaker 3: of American culture have either been or always have been
Speaker 3: kind of cultified. Whether that includes stuff like the Marvel
Speaker 3: or Star Wars, Van Base or sports teams or your
Speaker 3: little church who has this one pastor for like fifty years,
Speaker 3: who controls what everyone wears and what everyone's allowed to say,
Speaker 3: what everything one's allowed to watch, and who they're allowed
Speaker 3: to vote for. Right, Like, it's a lot of aspects
Speaker 3: that have been kind of now sucked into kind of
Speaker 3: like the what like the modern nuclear family kind of
Speaker 3: looks like a lot of the dynamics that make that
Speaker 3: kind of churns that machine have a lot a lot
Speaker 3: of cult aspects.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, definitely, I don't. Honestly, that's where like, you know,
Speaker 2: sociologists would contend with the tomb, right because honestly, there
Speaker 2: are some definitions of a cult that literally would just
Speaker 2: apply to pretty much any religious group. Sure, And what
Speaker 2: have your thoughts on that? You know, it's it's it's
Speaker 2: clear that although religious groups do have their issues, we're
Speaker 2: speaking about a very specific and concentrated approach to that
Speaker 2: type of organization. I mean, cults could be as small
Speaker 2: as two people, right where one person is controlling the
Speaker 2: other through claiming a position of privilege in sight. In fact,
Speaker 2: a lot of cults start with just two people the
Speaker 2: leader and they face acolyte, you know. And larger cults
Speaker 2: can also have smaller subcults within them, as you know,
Speaker 2: certain members branch out and pursue their own little fiefdoms.
Speaker 2: Cults weaponize people's emotions to bring them into the fold.
Speaker 2: I mean, you don't rationalize your way into the cults,
Speaker 2: the people that Heaven's gates with like, huh, yeah, you
Speaker 2: know that that really makes sense. I should probably investigate that.
Speaker 2: According to all these studies and calculations, it really really
Speaker 2: all lines up, you know. And similarly, most don't even
Speaker 2: rationalize their way out of a cult. Cult recruitment and
Speaker 2: cult dissolusion are mostly involving constantly shifting emotional states, which
Speaker 2: helps the leader loss of subtlety and nu ones and
Speaker 2: one's thoughts and feelings. And on top of that, cults
Speaker 2: are very good at making members feel special. You know.
Speaker 2: These minor insights are presented as profound revolutions. Commonly held
Speaker 2: ideas are claimed as exclusive to the cult, boosting members'
Speaker 2: sense of intellectual superiority. Where apocalypse is concerned, cults operate
Speaker 2: under the assumption that they are the only ones who
Speaker 2: can affert imminent catastrophe, fostering a belief in their infallibility,
Speaker 2: and then members are isolated from their pre cult self
Speaker 2: and life as their old beliefs are discarded and they're
Speaker 2: consumed by cult activities, embracing a new sense of self
Speaker 2: and riding high and the illusions and promises of a
Speaker 2: glorious future with often destructive and violent means needed to
Speaker 2: reach that goal. That description apply to both religious cults
Speaker 2: and political cults.
Speaker 3: And political cults. No, I was definitely viewing that through
Speaker 3: even a more so political lens, just because that's, you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of what we cover on the show. Yeah, No,
Speaker 3: like that can even that can even also I mean,
Speaker 3: it can obviously describe, like we've kind of been alluding
Speaker 3: to these big like communist kind of cult groups that
Speaker 3: operate particularly in North America. But honestly, that description can
Speaker 3: also like be applied to just like a really shitty
Speaker 3: like anarchist affinity group that's kind of being led by
Speaker 3: one asshole. Like, it's certainly like this. It certainly applies beyond,
Speaker 3: you know, the very you know, like political systems that
Speaker 3: are more inherently authoritarian versus once that aren't. But you know,
Speaker 3: if you look at like the Libertarian Party of the
Speaker 3: United States, right, and all of their little local chapters, right,
Speaker 3: they claimed to be anti authoritarian, but a lot of
Speaker 3: a lot of their internal politics are very authoritarian. But
Speaker 3: also like the specific local chapters, whenever they get new
Speaker 3: people in and they kind of have someone new take
Speaker 3: take charge of their chapter, it does have a little
Speaker 3: kind of cult dynamic running. And I don't think that's
Speaker 3: restricted just to those on the right of the political spectrum.
Speaker 3: I think there's definitely aspects where you even see this
Speaker 3: in like anarchist kind of compositions in at least at
Speaker 3: least to the United States.
Speaker 2: And in my observation, yeah, definitely, I think people here
Speaker 2: cults and they immediately think like the destructive cults of
Speaker 2: people of like the People's Temple of Jim Jones, right, Sure,
Speaker 2: I mean those numbers through deliberate action abused, physically injured,
Speaker 2: or killed other members of their own group and other people,
Speaker 2: you know, and then then of course they doomsday cults
Speaker 2: people think about like Having's skates who believe in some
Speaker 2: kind of apocalypticism or millenarianism. But I want to talk
Speaker 2: about political cults, right, and not just political cults on
Speaker 2: the left, even though that's a very easy target to
Speaker 2: go after, because you know, we are involved in these spaces.
Speaker 2: But you know there are a lot of right wing
Speaker 2: political culture as well. You know that we'll get we'll
Speaker 2: get their due attention in due time. In fact, the
Speaker 2: first political culture I do want to talk about in
Speaker 2: another episode is a cult that really ran the gamut
Speaker 2: from left to right. The leader of that cult the
Speaker 2: last name rhymes with La Poach. But you know we'll
Speaker 2: get to that in De.
Speaker 3: Tex Okay, all right, all right, all right, I will,
Speaker 3: I will, I will wait for the for the reveal.
Speaker 3: Do you know who else really loves cults?
Speaker 2: Who's that?
Speaker 3: The products and surfaces that pay both my bills and
Speaker 3: some of your bills. So here is a perfect a
Speaker 3: perfect space for an ad break. Thanks Chevron, if you're
Speaker 3: advertising pushing pushing forward the great American tradition of cultish
Speaker 3: behavior in the economic system, we are back have you
Speaker 3: ever read the book Cultish?
Speaker 2: So I classify my engagement with literature in two broad comps.
Speaker 2: Books I've read in books I've skimmed. That's a book
Speaker 2: I've skimmed.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, all right, it's it is it is.
Speaker 3: It is definitely a fine book to skim. No, it's
Speaker 3: definitely a good a good kind of a good, central
Speaker 3: central piece of literature. Kind of on on this topic,
Speaker 3: especially as it relates to, you know, getting out of
Speaker 3: just like Heaven's Gate or scientology. Know that there's very like,
Speaker 3: very obvious cults as starting to like look at the
Speaker 3: general cultishness of like this entire continent and specifically the
Speaker 3: United States. It's definitely a fun read if anyone is
Speaker 3: interested in the topic.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it particularly focuses on cult language, right,
Speaker 2: how the language of cultures used to manipulate people. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So political cults, right, I mean, in a world where
Speaker 2: established politics has failed us again and again, many have
Speaker 2: to into radical politics right and left. I mean, as
Speaker 2: someone who doesn't really consider myself left, but I do
Speaker 2: like relate to it in some way, you know, typical anarchist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm on the same I'm in the same boat
Speaker 3: as you there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't see radicalization towards left as necessarily a
Speaker 2: bad thing. I mean, there a lot of rabbit holes
Speaker 2: and pitfalls I think people fall into when they start
Speaker 2: progressing in that tratructory. But you know, people's frustrations with
Speaker 2: this feeling system are real, and it's that they seeking
Speaker 2: radical alternatives. Some of those alternatives are terrible and should
Speaker 2: be called out, but the premise of needing revolutionary system
Speaker 2: change is not terrible, which is where I disagree with
Speaker 2: the books kind of Centrist Bent, because it puts forward
Speaker 2: the idea that revolution is like this dramatic thing, right,
Speaker 2: Like how why would you reproposing that? Unless you were
Speaker 2: called kind of vibe. It also ends up drawing some
Speaker 2: equivalences between the radical left and the radical right. Sure,
Speaker 2: although I will say as well, the book is primarily
Speaker 2: discussed in Marxist Leninists when it talks about political cults
Speaker 2: on the far left, and as we'll see the way
Speaker 2: that Marxis Leninists structure things, it is somewhat conducive to
Speaker 2: that particular formation. Not to slander all Marxist Leninists, but
Speaker 2: the ideology is, you know, in some ways compatible in
Speaker 2: many ways campatal with cult organization. Yeah, and I do
Speaker 2: agree with the book's criticisms of the way that a
Speaker 2: lot of our sis learninists specifically organize their movements and organizations.
Speaker 2: But yet preamble side, the book defines political cults as
Speaker 2: environments where individuals are encouraged to envision of future society
Speaker 2: under their control. These members are often praised as visionary leaders,
Speaker 2: referred to as cartres, who will hold significant power in
Speaker 2: the new world order. At the same time, they are
Speaker 2: criticized for not fully grasping the ideals of the founders
Speaker 2: in the present. The slow progress toward realizing the cult
Speaker 2: schools is attributed to their perceived lack of effort. The
Speaker 2: leader is credited to the cult's achievements, while any setbacks
Speaker 2: are blamed on the members perceived laziness. This combination of
Speaker 2: grandiose vision and in culture that suppresses dissent create an
Speaker 2: environment where questioning any aspect of the group's ideology is
Speaker 2: met with intense fair and punishment, and political culturally do
Speaker 2: present a danger. Most of them are marginal irrelevant, but
Speaker 2: they do cause harm to the people within them and
Speaker 2: the people outside of them, And if they managed to
Speaker 2: take state power, like in Cambodia, it really has like
Speaker 2: extremely disasterisk results, and I would call a full partter
Speaker 2: cult leader. I would go as far as to say
Speaker 2: that political cults have been mostly far right right. There
Speaker 2: are some far left cults in the mix, which in
Speaker 2: my opinion is even more depressing because it's like you're
Speaker 2: so close and then yeah, there you go. So like
Speaker 2: a lot of my eya is targeted towards political cults
Speaker 2: and the left because it's like, wow, you know, almost there,
Speaker 2: and then now you're stuck planting the flag of the
Speaker 2: CCP in front of a university in the US or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, many, many such cases.
Speaker 2: Many such cases. All sorts of political cults demand to
Speaker 2: their true believers be prepared to raise the group's inflexible
Speaker 2: theology and strict organizational practices, much to the parallel society
Speaker 2: and honestly the waste of the talents, energy, and commitment
Speaker 2: to their members. For as long as I can remember,
Speaker 2: cults have been a bad thing. You know, Cults suck, right,
Speaker 2: Cults of all types really suck generally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, generally, cults have kind of a bad rap.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I can't imagine why. But then that lent
Speaker 2: itself to the question of why do people join them
Speaker 2: now they're stupid? How do they recruit and keep their members? Like?
Speaker 2: What's going on there is that they just didn't know?
Speaker 2: Is it that? Oh, cults, sign me up. I want
Speaker 2: to take a very unorthodox approach and offer you, Garrison personally,
Speaker 2: a guide to start your own cult.
Speaker 3: Oh I I've thought a lot about this already, but
Speaker 3: I am, I am. I'm very happy to, very happy
Speaker 3: to take it out here. Let me make a new Google.
Speaker 2: Doc and sure where drawn from the work of social
Speaker 2: psychologists Anthony Pratcanis and Elliott Aaronson. So just follow these steps,
Speaker 2: all right, all right? Step one create a distinct social reality.
Speaker 2: Cults is slate members from external sources of information, making
Speaker 2: them interact primarily with other cult members. This leads to
Speaker 2: a shift in vocabulary towards the cult's lingo, making it
Speaker 2: difficult for them to communicate with non cult members, which
Speaker 2: leads to the uncritical acceptance of the cult's propaganda. The
Speaker 2: cult's belief system must be rigid and all encompass in
Speaker 2: the analysis, answers everything about the world, and there is
Speaker 2: nothing beyond it. Left wing cults believe that their ideology
Speaker 2: is the only valid lens through which to view the world.
Speaker 2: Historic coalm zerialism. Well, right wing cults often center their
Speaker 2: beliefs around conspiracy theories, particularly related to race. And I remember,
Speaker 2: group's beliefs are beyond question or falsification, No tests or
Speaker 2: challenges allowed that might lead to a reevaluation of these beliefs.
Speaker 2: Any dissent or questioning is labeled as heresy or betrayal
Speaker 2: or you know better kind of vibe. Step two, create
Speaker 2: an in group and an outgroup. Cults emphasize differences between
Speaker 2: there in group and perceived out groups, fostering loyalty among members.
Speaker 2: It really doesn't matter who the out group is. You
Speaker 2: just need to have an outgroup of some kind. So
Speaker 2: for far right cults, it's like Jewish people, black people,
Speaker 2: gay people, those are the necessary out groups. That's like
Speaker 2: the bare minimum out group for most right wing groups. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like checklist, you know, typical. I mean, of course,
Speaker 2: some go even further, and they might say something like
Speaker 2: anybody who isn't a white Anglo Saxon Protestant is excluded
Speaker 2: from their groups. But you know, sorry, became kind of irrelevant.
Speaker 3: Sorry, Catholics, you're not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, RP Catholics, RP Irish, et cetera. And then
Speaker 2: for far left cults, in order to I state the
Speaker 2: members for the they can't just rely on like the
Speaker 2: bourgeoisie as the old group, because I mean, the rest
Speaker 2: of the left already has the bourgeoisie as an opponent.
Speaker 2: So these far left cults have to create other out
Speaker 2: groups to talk at the and I state their numbers
Speaker 2: from as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it becomes much more like seeped in ideology than
Speaker 3: some all then, like compared to some of the right
Speaker 3: wing cults, I think generally, the cults on the left
Speaker 3: get get way more into creating kind of ideological distinctions
Speaker 3: that separate the in group in the out group, and
Speaker 3: there the ideology becomes the thing that like this is
Speaker 3: like that becomes like the unquestionable thing that answers all
Speaker 3: of the truths and all of like the problems of
Speaker 3: the world, whether that's like an apocalyptic version where you're
Speaker 3: talking about like some like collapse, or it's you know,
Speaker 3: like a or even like a utopia version right where
Speaker 3: you're talking about the Marxist Leninists Party is gonna see
Speaker 3: seize power through the vanguard and control swaths of territory
Speaker 3: and return power to the proletariat.
Speaker 2: Yes, and the true obstacles to that party are the revisionists,
Speaker 2: the ultra leftists, et cetera, et cetera, the.
Speaker 3: Post leftists, the anarchists. Yeah yeah, the social Democrats as
Speaker 3: always the enemy to all sides, truly, the one, the
Speaker 3: one that everyone everyone loves to hit.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, truly, come right. Next step step three build
Speaker 2: commitment through dissonance reduction, so cults manipulate cognitive discerns by
Speaker 2: gradually escalating members quitment the group's beliefs and actions. These
Speaker 2: for sense of consistency and eventually conversion. You don't throw
Speaker 2: a newbie into the kool aid right away. You start
Speaker 2: small and you build up from there. Maybe first you
Speaker 2: join a meeting, Then maybe you start voting in the meetings.
Speaker 2: Then you hand it out flyers for the cult at
Speaker 2: like a Black Lives Matter protest for example, and then
Speaker 2: you sip in the kool aid. You know, it's like
Speaker 2: baby steps. You don't throw them into the intilrating right away.
Speaker 2: Next step four, maintain a rigid internal regime. Decision making
Speaker 2: power is concentrating in the hands of a select elite
Speaker 2: within the group. Formal controls and democratic processes are either
Speaker 2: dismantled or ignored, even though the organization make claim to
Speaker 2: be democratic on paper, and this environment helps to foster uncertainty,
Speaker 2: fair and confusion among members, which actually helps to reinforce
Speaker 2: their commitment to the group. Believe it or not. Five.
Speaker 2: Step five establish the attractiveness and credibility of the leader.
Speaker 2: Oh alrighty, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, makeover.
Speaker 3: This is this is why it's gonna be all over.
Speaker 3: As soon as they start making twink cults, it's gonna
Speaker 3: be whole swathps of above the population just are gonna
Speaker 3: immediately fall victim.
Speaker 2: Indeed, indeed, these grand or supreme leaders are legends, extraordinary
Speaker 2: in their qualities, your twinkness. New age cults do this. Sorry,
Speaker 2: new age cults do this with their sex best leaders
Speaker 2: and stuff. But oh my god, I can't not mention
Speaker 2: the veneration the political cults plays in their leaders, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean Hitler fans just obsessed with the guy. I
Speaker 2: mean that goes on saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah. This applies to like to like, people who are
Speaker 3: really into Hitler, people who are really into Stall, and
Speaker 3: people who are really into now they've become this almost
Speaker 3: like messionic figure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean even before I understood cults better,
Speaker 2: I could see very clearly early on, even you know,
Speaker 2: before my readers theory and everything just being exposed to
Speaker 2: you know that space, that there is a veritable cult
Speaker 2: of Lenin, of the king family, of Mao, of Trotsky,
Speaker 2: out of Stalin, and far be it from you to
Speaker 2: point out their flaws and mistakes. Either it's denied outright
Speaker 2: as outside propaganda, or it's kept on the download as
Speaker 2: much as possible. Specifically North Korea situation, right, you often
Speaker 2: see its supporters saying things like, yes, there are problems
Speaker 2: with North Korea, and we do discuss our criticisms behind
Speaker 2: closed doors, but openly, you know, it's full throttled, full
Speaker 2: throated support, which I find very interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Step six, speaking of leaders, the leader needs privileges naturally
Speaker 2: post our power, wealth accumulation, and often sexual favors as well.
Speaker 2: Activities that are usually deemed unacceptable for ordinary members are
Speaker 2: tolerated when apply it to leaders. Why because step seven
Speaker 2: you make sure to deify the leader. Leaders, whether historical
Speaker 2: or current, are elevated to a near defined status. They're
Speaker 2: carrying on the legacy and defending it from revision. If
Speaker 2: the og is already dead, you resolve the arguments by
Speaker 2: referencing the sayings of these leaders rather than through independent analysis.
Speaker 2: So it's not well, you know this is the case
Speaker 2: because we examined X, Y, and Z factor. It's this
Speaker 2: is the case because pus and AA said so in
Speaker 2: nineteenth century text number three hundred and seventy six or whatever.
Speaker 3: It's it's six hundred pages long.
Speaker 2: It's yeah. I mean, do you even read capital, Like, come.
Speaker 3: On, all all twenty five volumes?
Speaker 2: I mean, no shares a capital. I mean it's a
Speaker 2: good no.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, If you want to read about like German factory conditions,
Speaker 3: it is, and it's definitely it's eighteenth century German factory politics,
Speaker 3: it is. It is an unparalleled book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. Step eight you need to send members to proselytize.
Speaker 2: Members need to constantly promote the benefits of the culture
Speaker 2: others because that reinforces their own beliefs, that self generated
Speaker 2: persuasion strengthens their commitment. And to be fair, this applies
Speaker 2: even outside of cults, right like if in the habits
Speaker 2: of sharing your particular ideology or religion or philosophy. The
Speaker 2: process of sharing it often helps you to understand it
Speaker 2: and also lends itself lends to you being food persuaded
Speaker 2: by it. But in the context of everything else, in
Speaker 2: context of the cults, it really becomes a feedback loop
Speaker 2: quote which is shown of all interference from the outside world,
Speaker 2: and in which only the liturgy of the cult has
Speaker 2: any semblance of reality. Number nine. Step nine distract members
Speaker 2: from undesirable thoughts. Overworking members. Keep them busy and exhausted,
Speaker 2: far too busy and exhausted to question the group's direction
Speaker 2: or beliefs. Social life friendships, those all revolve around the group,
Speaker 2: and of course those friendships are entirely conditional on the
Speaker 2: maintenance of uncritical enthusiasm for the party line. The book
Speaker 2: uses the example of the Worker's Revolutionary Party in Britain,
Speaker 2: which has a chapter in the book all to itself.
Speaker 2: Despite neving able to muster more than one percent of
Speaker 2: the vote in any elections, somehow this small organization managed
Speaker 2: to put out a daily newspaper, keeping the members busy, busy, busy, busy, busy.
Speaker 2: Next number two fixate members on a promised land. Cults
Speaker 2: create an idealized vision of the future the contrast to
Speaker 2: the current reality that promised lands maybe an alien spaceship
Speaker 2: to the next dimension, a religious ethno state, or a
Speaker 2: Marxist lenin as utopia. But in either case, the cult's
Speaker 2: members are driven to work tirelessly to achieve this vision
Speaker 2: fair and missed opportunities. They're constantly either recruiting, in front raising,
Speaker 2: and kept in a constanst of luteness reinforcing the commitment
Speaker 2: to the group's beliefs now Garrison. If you follow these steps,
Speaker 2: you will have a fairly effective cult. But you know what,
Speaker 2: just for you, I'm going to throw in a bonus
Speaker 2: package of commonly held contradictions. You could call it the
Speaker 2: double think package.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, I'm all yours. I'm really really desperate
Speaker 3: at this point because I've kind of sunk cost fallacy
Speaker 3: this right, We've already been I've already been learning for
Speaker 3: like thirty minutes. I feel like I need to take
Speaker 3: away more or more information at at at the end
Speaker 3: because if I if I go and apply this now,
Speaker 3: it's I feel like I'm only gonna half asset. I need.
Speaker 3: I need one final, one final thing to kind of
Speaker 3: click into place here.
Speaker 2: Absolutely check this out right, love of liberty and support
Speaker 2: for totalitarianism.
Speaker 3: Right, these seem like two opposite things. How can how
Speaker 3: can both of these codes?
Speaker 2: You can hold them in your brains simultaneously? Right? Check this.
Speaker 2: Right left wing cults would idealize a very democratic Soviet
Speaker 2: community of the past. You know, some trotch gise groups
Speaker 2: even depict an earlier period as democratic before being corrupted
Speaker 2: by later leaders. And then right wing cults would claim
Speaker 2: to champ on individual liberty but seek to cletail democratic
Speaker 2: rights for those who disagree with So the democracy is upheld,
Speaker 2: but it's theoretical. So it's like, yeah, democracy would also
Speaker 2: come on the material conditions. You can't have democracy in
Speaker 2: that kind of situation. Ah, so you're loving, yes, like
Speaker 2: I am a democracy advocate, but also like democracy gets
Speaker 2: in the way sometimes we have to like get past it.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean you have like you
Speaker 3: see what I'm cooking. We have the democracy of like
Speaker 3: me and like my three friends, but not like you know, everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, it's like democracy, but it's like centered
Speaker 2: around like a group like I you call it like
Speaker 2: democratic centralism or something like that.
Speaker 3: Anyway, that's a great idea.
Speaker 2: That's a great idea, Thank you. Next, we have belief
Speaker 2: inequality and privilege for leaders.
Speaker 3: That last one team is kind of important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're going to be advocating for equality, but
Speaker 2: then your leaders are going to have a bunch of privileges.
Speaker 3: Because because we're spending all the time advocating, we but
Speaker 3: a little bit something.
Speaker 2: Extra exactly to the members. Well, they get to go
Speaker 2: out there and spend time fundraising and stuff, but they
Speaker 2: can't have a say and how the money is spent, right, Like,
Speaker 2: we need that money, you know, for our personal projects
Speaker 2: and our extremely high standard of livent. Check this out.
Speaker 2: This is very common in religious cults, but also very
Speaker 2: common in some political cults. Promotion of sexual morality and
Speaker 2: sexual exploitation.
Speaker 3: Huh well, okay, I'm not gonna I think I think
Speaker 3: I'll stop the flag a long bit at this one.
Speaker 2: Actually yeah, yeah, yeah, fair enough. But yes, this is
Speaker 2: it's terrible, It's really terrible.
Speaker 3: This is a very common thick.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, you know, cultural impose very strict sexual rules,
Speaker 2: particularly on members, but yeah, particularly young women, and the
Speaker 2: leaders will still like have a whole harem of female
Speaker 2: members that they exploit. Stuff.
Speaker 3: This is this is. This is even quite common with
Speaker 3: like like hardline evangelical cults in the in the States,
Speaker 3: whether that's kind of like a Quiverfull related or just
Speaker 3: other kind of smaller evangelical sex that kind of form
Speaker 3: their own kind of church cult dynamic. But that is
Speaker 3: that's very specifically, very common among Christian cults because of
Speaker 3: how much that like sexual authoritarianism is uh normalized in
Speaker 3: a lot of and a lot of Protestant and Catholic
Speaker 3: uh you know doctrine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly. It's it's frighteningly common.
Speaker 3: And I've certainly heard that like, you know, like Stalinists
Speaker 3: or Maoists specifically have have weird, weird sex stuff going on.
Speaker 3: But I've I've never I've never quite poked that bear,
Speaker 3: but I have i haven't heard that there's specifically really
Speaker 3: a weird sex stuff around ballists.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and also really weird sex offron Mao allegedly
Speaker 2: I've heard to bought his exploits. Yeah, moving along, last
Speaker 2: one in this little bonus package. The rest will have
Speaker 2: to like pay the twelve simple payments of nine hundred
Speaker 2: and ninety nine dollars to get you know.
Speaker 3: That's that's that's one payment every month, but each month
Speaker 3: I get more information about how to do it better.
Speaker 3: That sounds a good That sounds a great deal.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, for sure, because I mean you'll be just
Speaker 2: like swimming in cash by the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because now I can I can use these and
Speaker 3: I could pass down these steps to someone else, so
Speaker 3: I'll I will already get that best and they could
Speaker 3: pass it down.
Speaker 2: Pass it down, and then you'll get kicked backs from
Speaker 2: that as well.
Speaker 3: That's great. That's that's sounds looks like.
Speaker 2: A multi level scheme.
Speaker 3: It's like there's like a triangle and there's different like
Speaker 3: tiers of it, and like you're you're technically what above me,
Speaker 3: but I'm still pretty close to the top if I
Speaker 3: if I keep bringing it down, then it gets wider
Speaker 3: and wider. That's that sounds like a pretty good like
Speaker 3: setup and.
Speaker 2: I benefit and then you benefit.
Speaker 3: I mean, the triangle is actually the strongest shape structurally,
Speaker 3: structure structurally, So check.
Speaker 2: This out right, demand for free speech and suppression of
Speaker 2: descent right, so culture vigorously defend their right to free
Speaker 2: speech even results into legal action. Are there's some very
Speaker 2: infamous court cases involving in cults. Yes, and then they
Speaker 2: will criticize rival organizations for you know, undemocratic practices, yet
Speaker 2: within the wrongs of the group, dissent is actively suppressed.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is like the scientology classic here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And members will be told like, yeah, you
Speaker 2: should absolutely criticize. But then if they do criticize, you know,
Speaker 2: they're going to be humiliated. They can very easily be expelled.
Speaker 2: It's like a bait and switch. It's like, yeah, we
Speaker 2: give you this platform to criticize, so then we know
Speaker 2: who to target and to tear it down. Very very common,
Speaker 2: very very useful when you want to, you know, strengthen
Speaker 2: the integrity of your cult. All right, and one last
Speaker 2: quick game, let's ask ourselves.
Speaker 3: Really you're just like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, only if you call right now. So
Speaker 2: let's ask ourselves. Am I already in a political cult?
Speaker 3: Great? Good question. Actually, this is something people should ask
Speaker 3: themselves pretty frequently.
Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. And to figure that out, we have to
Speaker 2: look at the conditions that indicate the presence of ideological totalism,
Speaker 2: a tam coined by American psychiatrist Robert J. Lifter to
Speaker 2: give a name to the mood of absolute convictions, which
Speaker 2: embeds ideas so deeply in people's heads that they grow
Speaker 2: inoculated against doubt. So what are the conditions he identifies
Speaker 2: as indicating the presence of ideological totalism. Well, there's milieu control,
Speaker 2: mystical manipulation, the demand for purity, the cult of confession,
Speaker 2: the secret science loading, the language, doctrine over person, and
Speaker 2: the dispensing of existence. What do those mean one at
Speaker 2: a time? Miliu control involves techniques that dominate a person's
Speaker 2: contact with the outside world and communication with themselves. Right,
Speaker 2: so that idea of cults isolating people prevented them from
Speaker 2: testing the groups of ideas against external alternatives. Mystical manipulation
Speaker 2: is where cults claim a sense of higher purpose and
Speaker 2: portrayali ideology as the vanguard of social development. That's all
Speaker 2: encompass in. This is the essential ideology for the future
Speaker 2: of the world. Demand for purity is of course, where
Speaker 2: members are like convicted of their superiority and purity in
Speaker 2: their beliefs. The core ideas are essential, and anybody who
Speaker 2: is a non member as a critic or as a
Speaker 2: critic is an accomplice in some kind of conspiracy against
Speaker 2: the cult's ideas. The cult of confession is where members
Speaker 2: are required to confess their inadequacies and failures in group meetings,
Speaker 2: which helps to break down individuality and intimidating and helps
Speaker 2: to intimidate potential dis centers. The sacred science, through the
Speaker 2: group's ideology, is presented as a sacred moral vision, so
Speaker 2: you can't really question its basic assumption.
Speaker 3: The immortal science of mark system.
Speaker 2: The immortal science indeed loading the language is what we
Speaker 2: were talking about earlier, where cults use repetitive phrases and
Speaker 2: though terminating and cliches to prevent critical analysis and limit
Speaker 2: thinking and feeling. Doctrine over person is where historical myths
Speaker 2: are created or altered so align with the cult's ideology.
Speaker 2: And then the dispenser of existence is we have only
Speaker 2: those who adhance the group's ideology a fully human or
Speaker 2: good well. All others are seen as agents of evil
Speaker 2: or barriers to progress. How Black Will Delivery has been
Speaker 2: useful for you in determining whether or not you and
Speaker 2: a cult, as well as determine how you can create
Speaker 2: your own well.
Speaker 3: Something that that my boss has told me a lot
Speaker 3: is that there's there's very little difference between a cult
Speaker 3: and a really good party. So, but the biggest difference
Speaker 3: is that a party hopefully will be over right, it's
Speaker 3: it should just be like one night. So a good
Speaker 3: party is a cult that lasts like twelve hours tops.
Speaker 3: So you can't apply a lot of these ideas to
Speaker 3: putting together a really fun house party as long as
Speaker 3: that it's there's a mandatory, like a disclin ship of
Speaker 3: the party after after you know, everyone wakes up the
Speaker 3: next morning.
Speaker 2: So I'm imagining like uh a DJ like yes, yes,
Speaker 2: like like DJ miil you control.
Speaker 3: We are, we are putting gets back on no more,
Speaker 3: no more, ska back to gets exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The future lies right here in the.
Speaker 3: Space exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But I mean, in all seriousness, physical culture really sad.
Speaker 2: You know, the prayers, people's frustrations, the desire for change,
Speaker 2: the prey. And what's worse is that they prey on
Speaker 2: their desire for affiliation. Yeah. One of our most deeply
Speaker 2: rooted desires to identify with social groups, to develop an
Speaker 2: identity on a familiar your local, ethnic, or national scale.
Speaker 2: And it's really sad that people get lost in that source.
Speaker 2: You remember that, no matter what the group you choose
Speaker 2: affiliate with should be able to handle descent. I think
Speaker 2: that's a very good baseline upon which to affiliate or
Speaker 2: to determine your affiliation. Healthy groups, organizations, and movements are
Speaker 2: not weakened by descent. They need dissent, disagreement, and conflict
Speaker 2: to survive. Frequent and important disagreement makes movements and organizations stronger.
Speaker 2: It allows the individuals within them to maintain a level
Speaker 2: of independence and allows ideas to evolve through challenge rather
Speaker 2: than to exist purely due to the stifling atmosphere of conformity. Today,
Speaker 2: we spoke about the techniques employed by both left wing
Speaker 2: and right wing cults to maintain higher levels of conformity, activism,
Speaker 2: and intolerance among their members. I want to emphasize our
Speaker 2: discussion doesn't imply that movements striving for societal change are
Speaker 2: inherently bound to become obscure cults. Those that are critical
Speaker 2: examination of modern society is not warranted. But it's important
Speaker 2: to remember that while our will challenges require political natsis
Speaker 2: an action, the organizations that we form to address these
Speaker 2: challenges must try to genuinely seek understanding and transformation while
Speaker 2: preserving the freedom and individuality of its members. I still
Speaker 2: a lot to say create a real community, not a cult.
Speaker 2: That's all. Until next time, I've been Andrew of the
Speaker 2: channel Andrewism and next we will be discussing the one
Speaker 2: and only the Loathsome Lindone Lerbs Peace.
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