Being an atheist doesn't make you immune to being recruited by a cult.
For one, there're plenty of non-religious cults. Political cults, economic cults, cults based around a lifestyle. Even fandoms or hobbies.
Secondly, cults have a nasty habit of changing your beliefs once you're in them. They exploit psychological weaknesses in the human mind to make you believe things you wouldn't have otherwise, unquestionably.
If you have half an hour to spare please watch this video about how adults can get indoctrinated
To summarize it: Cults and other manipulative groups and ideologies will often target you when you're vulnerable, such as during a time of change and uncertainty in life. They'll use emotional and social pressures to overpower your critical thinking skills, or take advantage of logical fallacies to bypass it. And they'll exploit the human need for consistency in our thoughts to make you change or discard existing beliefs to fit with the new beliefs, regardless of how true or reasonable they are.
I'm making this post to not make you feel helpless, but the exact opposite. Knowledge about how cults take advantage of you, and understanding that you're not immune to them, is the first step towards taking proactive steps to protect yourself from such group.
Also, cults and controlling groups and ideologies don't come in just many types but many levels of intensity. You don't have to he living on a compound after having devoted your life to the group in a special ceremony to be influenced unduly by one such group. It's important to every once in a while take a step back and examine what you believe and see if it'd reasonable and genuine or something you're clinging onto for unjustified reasons.
