January 16, 2022

Ep 07: Are Cults on the Rise?

I found myself having a “holy shit I’m in a cult” moment. Looking back, I can see that it’s like I had turned a part of my brain off. But that’s exactly what happens to people in a cult. It’s designed that way.

The injustices done to people inside cults are very real.

And yet the perpetrators of those injustices are rarely brought to justice, largely because the boundaries of personal responsibility are fuzzy at best in these cases.

That does seem to be changing though–certainly in the court of public opinion–which we can see in the growing numbers of documentaries, series and podcasts on cults, their abuses, their money-making endeavors, their exoduses and escapes and everything in between.

The popularity and prevalence of these documentaries has me asking, are cults on the rise?

I’m also thinking about my own relationship with cults, or more specifically, cult-thinking, and about how easy it is, not just for any one of us to find ourselves accidentally in or in close philosophical proximity to a cult, but also how easy it could be for any of us–especially those of us who are teachers, coaches and mentors–to find ourselves leading one.

It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds.

Resources

In This Episode

The defining characteristics of a cult, and how those are evolving to make cults even more insidious and widespread
How the coercive language and practices of cults have infiltrated coaching spaces
What we can learn from how modern cults spread online

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