Cult leaders rarely start right out with the ‘big lie’. Even the most gullible of potential members would laugh in their face and move on if they did. Rather, they lay the groundwork over time; exploiting their followers’ alienation from the modern world – or fear of changes in society. They begin with smaller, more ambiguous fabrications that gradually draw followers in.
As leaders strengthen their hold, they isolate followers from outside influence. This may be overt—prohibiting members from contacting families, reading newspapers, watching television, or listening to the radio—but is more likely subtle. It is equally effective to consistently ridicule outside sources of information, encouraging members to cut themselves off. Over time, these sources are less frequently brought into conversation – unless distorted for use as a straw-dog, to reinforce the cult’s orthodoxy. Outside news sources are ridiculed as the ‘liberal press’, ‘mainstream’ media, ‘drive-by’, or ‘lame-stream’ media. Peer pressure and embarrassment cause members, over time, to avoid these altogether. Those who stray from this prohibition are viewed with suspicion by their fellow members. Rather than risk alienation from the group, the transgressor mends his or her ways, and avoids connection with these threatening influences.
The true test comes when the cult leader tells members something that is clearly, verifiably, false … then asserts it repeatedly. If the hook is set, followers will come around to believing the leader, rather than their own eyes. A guru may claim he is flying, thought he is clearly just sitting still in the lotus position – or that he is bench-pressing some ridiculously high weight, when a system of pulleys is clearly visible. Or a leader might claim to have attracted the largest crowd in history to his inauguration, when photographic evidence clearly shows a sparse crowd. So, who are you going to believe; your eyes, or the object of your adoration?
Once this point is reached, credulous True Believers can be led to believe almost anything, and followers become, in essence, an extension of the leader. Outsiders lose all influence; their silence is perceived as assent; disagreement, if heard at all, is perceived as a threat. Cognitive dissonance—the fear that if one admits the error of one claim, it could weaken of destroy one’s entire perceptual framework—creates a curtain of denial. The more ridiculous the lie that comes to light, the more intense is this effect. Rather than causing followers to question their beliefs or their fealty to the leader, a clear falsehood makes them cling ever more tightly.
Those who help cultists escape the hold of their leaders have a daunting task under the best of circumstances. Escaping members they must be shielded from cult influences in order to reenter normal reality – and even so, it takes a long time, and leaves the former member disoriented and unmoored. When a cult has multiple, easily accessible channels of mass media, and controls all branches of a nation’s government, the prospects for members to escape are dismal.
