I'm not a regular poster here, nor an exMo -- just someone who has had an academic interest in cults for many years.
The reason I'm popping in is to ask what you all think about something I've been seeing among ex-cult members. Some seem to get mentally all the way out, learning along the way how these groups manipulate and deceive people, and therefore becoming alert to those tactics when they encounter them elsewhere.
Then there are those who stop with the debunking of the claims of specific cults. They'll see enough to disprove the claims of the LDS or the JWs, but they don't go any further. I guess you could say they remain stuck at the level of basic facts instead of a more analytical view. They remain susceptible to other cults and cult-like groups.
I know there are lots and lots of people working really hard to educate people about the dynamics involved, but some ex-members are just not being reached. Is there something different that can be done to reach such people?
A quick reply. Remember, people are recruited into cults. They do not wake up one day and decide to join a cult. It often happens that an individual or group will help a cultist out of an organization, then claim that their personal group (cult) is true. It follows the thinking that I showed you what was false, therefore what I believe is true. It is not logically consistent, but it can affect a person newly out of a destructive organization right into another one.
> . . .it can affect a person newly out of a > destructive organization right into another one.
Just so. Cults attract a certain type of personality, and when people are born into cults they assume some of that personality's defining characteristics.
When one of those people subsequently realizes that s/he is in a cult and leaves, s/he still retrains a lot of cultic habits and preferences. It is inevitable that such people will be more likely than most to embrace a new cult or a new conspiracy.
You bring up an excellent point about leaving a cult. When I left mormonism I left because I didn't believe in god but I still was culturally a mormon. It took years for me to realize how destructive mormonism is. It takes a lot of work and awareness (and in my case an intelligent nevmo wife) to get one to question ALL of the aspect that a cult inserts into one's life.
Much of my identity was a construct of the mormon cult. My values, who were my friends, my tribe, my sense of my place in the world. All of that was tied into the cult.
I can see why someone would leave one cult only to join another because to truly extricate oneself takes a lot of effort and time.
I very much agree with all of the responses thus far.
I would add that there are people who, for whatever reason (and being raised in a cult is not the only reason) seek a much simpler world where good and bad can be easily defined. The complicated world we live in today where every (or almost every) decision we make has both possible positive and negative consequences leaves these people cold and uncertain about how to live their lives. Cults for these people provide easy answers as to who is good, who is bad, and you really don't need to think about anything else.
The one minor difference in our thinking is over whether "today" is more "complicated" than previous eras. I don't think it is. The American frontier in JS's day was complicated, particularly for those coming from other places and countries. Peasant life in Europe in the Middle Ages was a constant struggle to survive economically, in terms of health, and due to the privations of crime and war. And I think that has always been the case. What differentiates modern humanity is the availability of education and information, which, if anything, gives us a better chance of escaping cults.
That said, cultic inclination ebbs and flows and in recent years it has definitely been flowing. What that indicates is that education and information are sometimes insufficient to overcome the reactionary pull of human irrationality. Some people really would prefer to climb back into the trees.