I’m going to be brave and put myself out there because this is very important. I was in a cult for a few years, and “all religion/only religion can be cults” is something that is completely untrue and undermines what they actually are and the power they can have over someone, big or small. And not every cult is a physical location to go to. People very often dismiss the severity of something done online, saying that it’s much easier to “just leave” or “just press a button” or “just delete your account”. Dismissing the psychological factors or thinking you’re below them might lead you right into the thing you swore you’d never fall for, or not recognize the signs in someone else.
Not every cult is going to be based on a religion, and even something niche can have these groups in the fringes. The one I was in preyed on the otherkin community. Sometimes a cult is an ideology (MAGA is a great example, and though it still has roots with Christianity, it’s by and large a political movement). Misuing the word is why we get things like “the (insert disingenuous description of a minority group) is a cult” being thrown at already marginalized communities—I hear this one about trans people all the time in far-right spaces.
Not every cult is going to be run with an iron fist that scares people straight either. I was friends with a lot of the upper caste in the cult I was in, including the leader. We regularly had calls, we played D&D and jackbox and drawful more than anything super “official”. A lot of my memory from that point in time is just hanging out and talking casually.
Not every cult gets super mad if you leave. Granted, I lied, but the leader himself still said I was welcome to come back any time I wanted. A few members were worried about me after I left, too. And before that, there were members who very loudly denounced the cult but were given express consent to come back. There wasn’t anger. There was just disappointment, which was leveraged and used as emotional bait for others to stay.
Not everyone who gets lead into a cult is stupid or already was a fanatic of something else. I myself was isolated due to abuse at home and I had only recently discovered my alterhumanity. I joined when I was 17, but only allowed access to more after I turned 18. I was given the role of a recruiter shortly after I passed the initiation phase, and a lot of it was just getting to know people and making them feel welcome. Even if I truly did feel for the people I talked to, and I did actually want to become their friend, it was still for nefarious reasons. I have had a lot of time to understand what I was doing. I have apologized to some of the people I dragged into it, though I lost contact with almost everyone after I left.
Even through that, there was pressure and secrecy and an expectation. I kept it away from my family and everyone closest to me, including my now-fianceé (though I did introduce her into it a year or so later, but she left very quickly and without much fanfare). A few people I was friends with have taken their lives due to this cult. A few escaped with me and we’re now very close.
I was terrified of leaving, not because there was extreme cruelty done to me or threatened, but because I had come to care for the people there. It felt like a community, they called it a family. I felt like it was a family. And we regularly joked about it being a cult, often to dismiss the alarm bells that other people were hearing. Yes, I even joined in on that, and looking back on it is really painful to me because it’s unmistakably clear in hindsight. I just didn’t see it for a while.
It wasn’t until they started suggesting that we earn actual money for things, or that we could pool together everything we had and live secluded, together, with only our influence on the way we wanted to run it and leave society behind. I was taking a religions and culture class during this time, and the BITE model was shown. That’s when I finally felt all the pieces of why I felt off click into place.
Study the BITE model. It isn’t perfect, but it helps draw some distinctive lines. It gave me the resolve to leave.
And if you’re in a group, or you know someone else who is in a group that fits and feels off…trust your gut. No matter how far into it you are, trust your instincts. Take note of things that feel off, and compare them to the BITE model. Even if it doesn’t check out completely, there could still be something wrong, and being safe is always better than being sorry.
