So, we learned about cults, for education purpose, of course. Now, I’m not exactly sure on they why, but we dived straight first into the fanatical world of cult leaders. This blog post will not be very specific since I’m on my last breath of school and I’m ready to become a hermit while finally finish reading those 15 books I took out from the library. While this unit was unexpected, I do believe it prepared us for the very real manipulation tactics utilized by cults to make regular people zealous followers. 

Cult Case Studies

At the start we educated ourselves on different cults. I took time outside of school to watch the Netflix documentary series, How to Become a Cult Leader, which I would heavily recommend to anyone interested in learning more about cults since it goes over the manipulation techniques utilized by many different cults to make leaders. We also watched a Ted-Talk titled, How to Spot a Cult, it taught us that nobody joins a cult, but are slowly wheeled in through love-bombing and isolation. Furthermore, that the people who don’t think they will be a part of cult, are much more susceptible to cult rhetoric. We also watched a video called, How Cults Use Language to Control, which explores the relationship of language, and how it is weaponized by cults.

Annotated Bibliography

For my final product of this project, I chose the most fun and easiest task I could think of, writing an essay. Specifically on the Japanese cult, Aum Shinrikyo, answering the thesis “Educated individuals are not immune to cult indoctrination, as they remain susceptible to societal expectations, targeted advertisement, and manipulative tactics.” 

Despite my constant research, I did’t find many sources that specifically supported my thesis, thus my paper is much shorter that I hoped. Next time, I will try to do some actual research into how many public sources I can find that can support my thesis. 

Essay Writing 

Writing the essay went quite smoothly since I have written a total of 5 research papers this year. Thus, I was able to tackle every problem head on and used the correct format for MLA. You can check it out the final result right here!

 

To answer the question of the why people join cults, we’re lonely and wanted to join a group due to our crave for connection. At the start, cults can seem like a lovely, perfect community only for it to slowly turn sourer. Overall, the key lesson to take always from this post is, if anyone is telling you to abandon your friends and family to go live on a commune in the middle of nowhere, give a fake number and run away!