I recently finished reading Cults In Our Midst—The continuing fight against their hidden menace, by Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer. The book is not new—it was originally published in 1995, and the revised edition that I read was published in 2003. It is a comprehensive description of cults, which the author defines as:
a group that forms around a person who claims he or she has a special mission or knowledge, which will be shared with those who turn over most of their decision making to the self-appointed leader.
Before reading Cults In Our Midst, I’d read and watched TV programs about some cult leaders, and noticed the similarity between their behavior and the behavior of sociopaths. I developed the opinion that cult leaders were simply sociopaths who employed their natural “skills” of charisma, charm, deceit and manipulation to convince others to follow them, and do as they commanded, even when it ended in death, as in Jonestown and Waco.
I expected to see a similar view in this book, and was surprised not to find it. Singer was an experienced clinical psychologist, yet, in this book at least, she does not link cult leaders and personality disorders. Perhaps she didn’t conduct formal research on what the two have in common. But in reading the book, the connection seemed obvious to me.
Cultic relationship
Singer defines a cultic relationship as:
one in which a person intentionally induces others to become totally or nearly totally dependent on him or her for almost all major life decisions, and inculcates in these followers a belief that he or she has some special talent, gift, or knowledge.
She describes cult leaders as self-appointed, persuasive, determined, domineering and charismatic. The cults are authoritarian in structure, and have double sets of ethics—members are to be open and honest within the group, but deceive and manipulate everyone else. The overriding philosophy of cults is that the ends justify the means.
Gee, where have we heard that before?
Anyone is vulnerable
Singer points out that everyone is susceptible to these master manipulators. She writes that two-thirds of the people who joined cults came from normal, functioning families. Still, there are some situations that increase risk:
Any person who is in a vulnerable state, seeking companionship and a sense of meaning or in a period of transition or time of loss, is a good prospect for cult recruitment. ”¦ I have found two conditions make an individual especially vulnerable to cult recruiting: being depressed and being in between important affiliations.
By “between important affiliations,” Singer meant a person was not engaged in a meaningful personal relationship, job, educational training program, or some other life involvement.
Singer spends a lot of time explaining exactly how cults go about recruiting people. One of the prime methods she describes is something we are all familiar with—love bombing. The author explains this as flooding new recruits with “flattery, verbal seduction, affectionate but usually nonsexual touching, and lots of attention to their every remark.”
Again, sound familiar?
Learning to manipulate
So how do people become cult leaders? As I said, Singer never suggests that cult leaders are disordered people who are exhibiting their natural, disordered behavior.
Singer calls the perpetrators “con artists.” She says that their prime skills are persuasion and manipulation. She writes:
There is no end to the ways a person can learn to manipulate others, especially if that person has no conscience, feels no guilt over living off the labors and money of others, and is determined to lead.
She continues:
I believe that the successful cult leaders monitor, observe, and learn from what they try and, as needed revise and reformulate the folk art of persuasion.
So, reading this book, Singer seems to say that certain people simply decide that they are going to become cult leaders, and then figure out how to do it. She makes no mention of inborn personality traits or any type of personality disorder—even though her words are perfect descriptions of sociopaths.
Ostracized by her profession
During the 1980s, Singer was an expert witness on court cases involving mind control. She testified in the trial of Kenneth Bianchi, the “Hillside Strangler,” that he was not suffering from multiple personality disorder, as he claimed. On a TV show, Singer said that Bianchi was a psychopath. She also repeatedly testified against the Unification Church.
In 1983, the American Psychological Association (APA) asked Singer to chair a task force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control. Then, the APA rejected her report.
In fact, the APA filed a “friend of the court” brief in a case against the Unification Church. Dr. Singer and a colleague, Dr. Samuel Benson, had argued that the Unification Church recruiters “engage in systematic manipulation of the social influences surrounding the potential recruit to the extent that the recruit, in fact, loses the capacity to exercise his own free will and judgment.”
The APA stated that Singer’s theory of coercive persuasion was not a meaningful scientific concept, and her testimony in the case should not be allowed. The brief stated:
Specifically, the conclusions Drs. Singer and Benson assert cannot be said to be scientific in any meaningful sense (Point I.B.), and the methodologies generating those conclusions depart so far from methods generally accepted in the relevant professional communities that they are incapable of producing reliable or valid results (Point I.C.). Stripped of the legitimating lustre of a scientific pedigree, plaintiffs purported scientific claim of coercive persuasion is little more than a negative value judgment rendered by laypersons about the religious beliefs and practices of the Unification Church. (Point I.D.).
Read Brief Amicus Curiae of the American Psychological Association
Singer sued the APA, and lost. Afterwards, she reworked much of the rejected material on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control into the book, Cults In Our Midst. Since the first edition of the book came out in 1995, powerful cults threatened and harassed Singer, and filed lawsuits against her. So the introduction to the revised edition explained that an account of one of the cults was deleted.
Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer died in 2003.
Cults In Our Midst is available on Amazon.com.
skylar
You’re welcome Truthspeak,
spaths don’t always wear a mask of sanity, sometimes the mask of INsanity works better for a particular application.
The spath doesn’t actually exist. He is hollow/shallow. Alexander Lowen calls them “ungrounded”. They are attached to nothing. Their masks are the only thing that gives them a temporary identity. In the same way that infants are not completely formed, the spath has not developed a value system. They don’t know what to value so they don’t know what they want, so they want what YOU have.
Someone without form finds it easy and necessary to take on other forms. It’s just a matter of mimicking what they see.
In their repertoire of masks, they will have one or two that they’ve practiced the longest and wear most easily, yet they like to try on new ones occasionally. Spaths wear masks the way women wear shoes.
sharing the journey
Skylar
I could listen to you all day when you talk about their masks.
I thought mine had a multple personality–I got shocked mentally when I saw them. But I think now it was different masks I was seeing.
I understand intellectually about there being nothing inside-but emotionally I can’t grasp it.
STJ
xxx
skylar
STJ,
in “The Happiness Trap” the author Russ Harris, tells us to stop chasing happiness, because it is ephemeral and dependant on outside things. Instead, he said, to look for satisfaction in the way you live your life. The key, he said, is to choose your values. Decide what you find most important to you, and live your life – EACH MOMENT – by those values. It is the key because values ground us.
This has been difficult for me because my spathy parents didn’t instill values in us – except for money and material things and the facade (what others think of you). Values aren’t really choices so much as they are deeply held convictions about what’s important. I’ve worked hard to find truth and convictions for myself. Mostly I’m convinced that spaths suck and it’s important to gray rock them!
Spaths have no values. They really have no idea what is important or why. They don’t have deeply held convictions because they have no DEEP ANYTHING. LOL! There is no depth to a spath. There is only the mask and an underlying slime of evil and malevolence toward anyone who DOES have depth. They are unanchored and free-floating. That’s the source, I think, of their anxiety and need to cause drama. They want us to feel what they feel because they can NEVER feel what we feel.
how’s that? it felt good to get on the soap box!
sharing the journey
Excellant.
Just love your posts as I always learn something from you. A lot of the things you say strike a chord with me.
Take care
STJ
xxx
woundlicker
OMG, STJ~ I have been wanting to tell Skylar that I love her posts, too, but you beat me to it!!
Actually I love both of your posts. I get so much indepth wisdom, knowledge, and sound advice reading the comments. At first I tried concentrating on just the articles, but damn if the comments don’t affect me as much if not more than the articles. No slam meant, but I say give credit where credit is due.
Please keep up the good work. You probably will never know how much you’re helping people like me.
skylar
I’m so glad to help, woundlicker. I want to give back for all the help that I receive from everyone at LF.
You all rock! (gray)
sharing the journey
Woundlicker
She’s good isn’t she. I value Skylar’s posts because she is mostly always upbeat on her journey and she helps me put 2 and 2 together quite often. If I want to know anything about a spath she is who I consult–due mainly to her thorough research and insights. It saves me loads of time researching myself–I just know she is right.
Sorry for discussing you Skylar 🙂
I have been reading your posts too and I have a feeling that you will be all right. I can’t explain the feeling as it is based on an overall impression of your journey from what I have read. It’s a tough journey but I am coming to realise worth it. Still loads of healing to do.
Keep going.
I too want to thank all posters as I have been validated here more than I could ever get in the outside world. It has been a lifesaver for me. Don’t know how I would have ended up without you all.
Take care all
STJ
XXX
woundlicker
Thank you, STJ! I haven’t really heard anyone say that, that I’ll be all right. I wonder sometimes.
This site is a life saver. I, too, would hate to think what I would be if not for this community. You are all a God send.
Truthspeak
Sharing the journey, Skylar, & Woundlicker – the masks are chilling, and the exspath tried on THAT mask back in August before my discoveries. He looked straight at me and asked, “Do you think I might be bipolar?” I shot that down because I was beginning to feel wary on a gut level. From his previous behaviors leading up to that point, something kept telling me that “Something Doesn’t Add Up,” and his direct question came out of the blue as if he wanted me to validate “something” that would later excuse any discoveries I might make.
What a grand setup they cultivate! They should all be movie costume designers!!!
woundlicker
I remember everytime the ex spath would declare he was going to commit suicide, not because I was leaving him or anything like that, he would pretend cry and peer through his fingers that covered his fake crying eyes to see if I was looking.
At the time I knew he was acting and just trying to get attention and sympathy, but I had no clue it wasn’t just his immaturity. I had no clue at the time that it was much more sinister. Everything was a facade, a mask, an act. By telling me he wanted to kill himself because his mom was a bitch or because the bank charged him a late fee or some other ridiculous reason, it would take the edge off of a future violation of trust he would surely commit.
Everything was one grand setup- SO true! I stayed with that devil because of the suicide threats and all the while IT was stealing from me and others, screwing everything with a pulse- thanks for the STD asshole- and abusing me verbally. He told me that I was bipolar and made me think I was crazy. I don’t recall hardly a lucid moment with that sociopath. He was on drugs and alcoholic binges constantly and took lots of steroids so he would be massive but the roid rage was always taken out on me and never his other girlfriends and boyfriends.
I was always good to him and yet was never treated nicely. I was treated like scum, like trash. He would call me such horrible names when I asked why he was sneaking around and having sex with drug addicts, dealers, prostitutes, and teens. He would call them the loves of his life, very good people, special, soulmates and friends, etc. He talked about the them like they were the light of the world and then told me to “shut up you f*cking c*nt” every time I found out he was cheating. Which was almost weekly.
He cheated with probably a hundred people while I was with him, so I was called a lot of despicable things as you might guess. I not only stayed, but begged his forgiveness to not leave me for questioning his many crimes and sins. He made me grovel. And I did freely. Only God knows why.
I have a very hard time healing because my experience with the ex spath was very similar to most of the people on lovefraud, but it was more towards the abusive side. I didn’t get the apologies, promises of change, none of the sweet fakeness. I got the overwhelming burden of his bad side and almost nothing else. I have a very hard time trying to cope with the fact that I let that happen to me.
What could have been MY issue (s) that I let such evil rule me? Its scary.