Five Easy Steps To Becoming a Successful Cult Leader
-
We have five easy steps to becoming a successful cult leader. Our teaching course at the community college got cancelled so we’re going to reveal our secrets to you.
Every time I see a documentary about some horrible cult leader who has successfully brainwashed dozens of otherwise normal-looking individuals into believing he’s Jesus and allowing their young children to do disgusting sexual favors for him, I think to myself, “I could do that. I could be that guy.” Except that I’m a girl and I don’t want to have sex with toddlers. But watching these maniacs spew their outlandish nonsense and have people actually believe it is enough to convince me that you, too, can start your very own cult in just five easy steps:
1. Locate the Vulnerable
Our first step to becoming a successful cult leader begins at the begnning. Every good cult begins by capitalizing on the weakness of others. Vulnerable individuals are the best candidates for brainwashing and controlling because they are, consciously or subconsciously, desperately searching for salvation and stability — in other words, for answers to their prayers (whether literally or figuratively).
Jim Jones, leader of the notorious Peoples Temple and executioner of the Jonestown Massacre, is a perfect example of a cult leader who used the vulnerability of others for his own personal gain. In the mid-50s, Jones was an unknown pastor vying for braaaains, braaaains! He noticed a great amount of gullible Baptists flocking to faith-healing services and doling out a whole lot of money for some guy to place his hand on their forehead and scream that all of their problems were being mashed into pieces by our Lord and Savior. Jones stole the idea and ran with it, using the acting skills of other faith-healers to garner his own followers and eventually help him launch his own church/cult.
Psychological studies note that those in transitional periods in life, such as people moving to a new and unfamiliar state or going through a rough breakup, are the most likely to be tricked into joining a soul-sucking cult.
Seek out the tired, the sad, the confused, and rally beside them for a cause they want to believe in and that you can pretend to. Be their support system and their guide, and they will follow you eagerly into the pit of darkness that is your evil plan to enslave them.
Which is another thing Jones did: relocate his followers to Jonestown, Guyana, where they grew even more vulnerable in their strange new surroundings and therefore increasingly willing to go along with whatever he said.
2. Be Realistic (at First) to Gain Trust
So you’ve found a bunch of sad, vulnerable people just waiting to be taken advantage of. Now is the perfect time to execute the second step in becoming a successful cult leader. You can’t just walk up to them and start ranting about how you’re Jesus reincarnated and are going to carry them to heaven on a rainbow star made of all the soothsayers’ tortured, burning souls. Actually, you could, but your cult probably wouldn’t be very effective. The trick to getting these suckers to believe you is subtlety, psychology, and a little bit of keeping it real.
Just look at Bert Potter — a monstrous pedophile responsible for defiling and feeding drugs to dozens of children whose parents sacrificed them willingly, Potter began as an unlicensed therapist who claimed to derive many of his teachings from his time spent with an Indian guru in the 1970s. His therapy groups began as small gatherings of gullible folks who listened to his half-sane theories of love, emotional honesty, and expression with wide eyes and open hearts. Since he was well-read in both psychology and therapy, his carefully constructed theories struck a chord with anyone searching for an answer to their emotional problems.
Potter slowly evolved these weekly meetings. Not only did he express what seemed to his victims to be a genuine concern and interest for each of them, but he incorporated his own methods of therapy into his sessions which were meant to draw out the issues within these people while simultaneously strengthening their trust in him. As the bonds grew stronger and people began to depend on him, Potter and his minions pooled their funds to begin their very own community where they could expand their sessions into 24/7 marathons of healing and therapy. And by healing and therapy I mean sexual torture and brainwashing.
Ease your victims into your schizophrenic delusions of reptilians in the White House. Coax them into believing that they are made up of thousands of tiny alien souls clinging to their bodies, weighing them down, and that they must give you all their money in order to be released. But think of something original, because Scientology has already got that last one covered.
3. Create and Identify a Problem with the Personalities of Your Followers
This step to becoming a successful cult leader combines step one and two. You have the vulnerable. Now you’ve gotten them to trust you. They’re vulnerable and they’re willing to listen to you. But is it enough? The answer is no. It is not enough. You need them to feel like they are truly beneath you. This is why you must find a flaw they don’t have, convince them they have it, amplify it, and then be their source of relief by revealing that, not to worry, you are the only person who can fix them.
Alan John Miller is an Australian cult leader who has somehow managed to convince hundreds that he is Jesus Christ and that his wife is Mary Magdalene, despite the fact that she is the third “Mary Magdalene” he has chosen because the first two women he tried to say were this possibly fictional character from thousands of years ago saw through his bullshit and didn’t believe him at all.
During Miller’s own therapy sessions, he uses negative words like ‘fear’ and ‘addiction’ to describe the human condition in general — something which affects us all. He then goes on to say he “can feel” that some of his audience members “are still in addictions,” which is general enough to apply to most of the population. Who isn’t struggling with some type of addiction? An estimated 25 million people struggle with drug and alcohol addiction in America alone. Factor in addiction to sex, lying, nail-biting, and just generally being a jerk, and that’s pretty much every American. Miller then goes on to note that an addiction of any kind impedes one’s development of their relationship with God. Since all of his members are religious, he’s successfully convinced many of his members that they have a manufactured problem which he is now going to help them fix.
So what do your followers like? Do they want to unlock their optimum energy potential (it helps to straight up make shit up at this point in the game)? They can’t do so as long as they are distracted by something — and we are all distracted by something, aren’t we? AREN’T WE? You’re the one who can help them focus! You were like them once!
4. You Are God
You have a bunch of people who love and admire you and will do just about anything you say. Keep pushing it is our next step to becoming a successful cult leader. You don’t want them to wise up and leave, do you? You need to become superhuman in their eyes. You need to literally be a god before these tiny mortals, choosing to help and heal instead of mercilessly crush their puny bodies.
Jim Jones, Bert Potter, Alan John Miller, and other successful cult leaders all convinced their loyal followers that they were some type of Messiah. Alan John Miller is pretty straightforward about telling other people he’s Jesus, and even writes “I’m Jesus — deal with it” on his whiteboard in a display of what I think is humor (because he’s smiling and people laugh even though to me it is incredibly creepy) during one of his sessions.
Once other people think you’re an immortal, untouchable, all-knowing know-it-all, you can really break out the evil shit. Take all their money, diddle their kids, beat them in public, force them into slavery, whatever. No one’s going to tell God he’s wrong.
5. Discredit Dissenters
But there are certainly some people who are going to tell you you’re wrong, because you’re not God. You know this, and so do some of the people who are growing tired of your silly antics and evil ways. Not everyone wants to stay stupid forever, and those who have had enough of watching you screw their wives and clean out their coffers may try to call you out on being a simple Phil Collins loving sociopath. Time for our final step in becoming a successful cult leader.
Discredit your dissenters. Use the belief that your loyal followers have distilled in you to humiliate, shun, embarrass, and otherwise destroy your opposition. Scientology chases down, harasses, and threatens their dissenters. They’ve even been caught creating false and slanderous rumors about those who dare to speak out against them. Since they have so much (stolen) money and so many (brainwashed) members, their support system flattens their enemies like Mario getting caught between two metal walls in the evil castle.
Jim Jones used his own people to discredit any member of his cult who had a real thought in their brain as well. He would employ his followers to spy and snitch on one another. He would have his followers write down their fears and perceived mistakes and then use this information to humiliate them if they stepped out of line.
As long as you divide your house against itself in your holy name and employ fear to control your new family, everything should be just fine. Until you force them all to drink poisoned Kool-Aid or get arrested for pedophilia. Ah, the American dream.
sources
http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov03/jonestown.aspx
http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general431.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones#Jonestown.27s_formation_and_operation
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/JonestownReport/Volume9/Brooks.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrepoint_(commune)
http://www.crime.co.nz/c-files.aspx?ID=1844
http://aboutrecovery.com/
I started writing when I was .05. I have a dog named Cody. And a cat named Catty. I have other cats but they aren't important. I run www.ForkParty.com. Follow me on Twitter @Important
