Research has yet to show that there is any flaw in people who are recruited into cults. People do not just go and join cults. Usually they join or become affiliated with front groups that look normal. I was recruited in this way to a group called the National Labor Federation (Natlfed)/ Provisional Communist Party when I was 18. It is a left-political cult, not a religious cult.
In 1979, after high school, I decided to volunteered full-time with a group that said they tried to provide health care for migrant farm workers on Long Island, the Coalition of Concerned Medical Professionals (CCMP). It turned out to be a front group. Natlfed has numerous organizations claiming to provide services and organize low income workers around the country. They actually do work in the community and this is how most people become affiliated with them. They had a very deliberate, manipulative, and deceptive recruitment process for members. I ended up working 7 days a week, 16 hours a day, with very little sleep for the next 14 ½ years.
When someone volunteered with CCMP or any of the Natlfed front groups, information about their background, interests, political views, arrests, etc. is solicited from them. Some of this is formal while filling out what’s called a Volunteer Information Sheet (VIS), and some is informal – their team member on a neighborhood canvass to reach out to low income workers may initiate a conversation. All of this information is reported back to the person in charge of recruitment and the volunteer’s next encounter is planned. If the volunteer has a disagreement with the group’s political position, a conversation on why they’re right is planned. It may be formal, it may be informal. For instance, in the field of equal justice for the poor, if you think that legal service organizations are the best way to address the lack of affordable legal services, they will have someone talk about the failures of legal service organizations in the past and why what their group is supposedly doing is better.
The process has a deliberate progression. It is called TVTV for tab volunteer, viable volunteer, tab cadre, viable cadre. First they want to get your agreement that there is a problem and that you will be part of the solution by making a scheduled time commitment. Then they work on getting you to agree that all other efforts are doomed to failure and that the only way to solve inequalities in the country is through a revolution. At that point they tell you that that is their real goal and ask you to expand your schedule to learn more about this. Then they start teaching you their doctrine that in a nutshell is that socialist revolution is the answer. The way to make this revolution is to organize unrecognized workers in the US into mutual benefit associations. That a revolutionary situation will eventually arise in the US (like during the Vietnam War) and the communities will turn to them for leadership and they will take power. Eventually they ask you to cut all ties with everyone else to commit your whole life to making the revolution as the only solution to all the world’s problems.
Most people if presented this at the beginning would not voluntarily give their life up to the movement. But, when done as a process, with each encounter planned, with each objection worked on whenever they see you, some do. Most people are responding to emotional and social influences – not the rational basis for the group. People are befriended, they are told they’re special, there is an easy black and white answer for all the world’s problem, there is an us and them, there is a promise that they’ll end up someone important running the country. Then when you add in that their whole existence becomes centered in the group as well as their entire support system, the rational basis for the work doesn’t matter that much. The full-time organizers seem like dedicated sincere people, and for the most part they are.
Granted most people won’t become full-time. It is more a matter of where someone is in their life, rather than who they are or having backbone. What statistics there are seem to indicate that if anything, members of high demand groups like this are more intelligent than the average population. If someone begins going through a transition period, like finishing school and having to get a job, a divorce, or losing a job, they are much more vulnerable to groups like this. They are not grounded and having a support system and easy answers becomes very appealing. I saw part-time people who went through divorce, befriended by the organizers and recruited within a couple of weeks as full-time people.
Once a person is full-time they commit to a military discipline because they think this is necessary to build a revolution. The group is highly centralized and subordinates must follow orders of ordinates. People are regularly screamed at and demeaned and they feel they must take it to maintain discipline. At times there has been physical abuse and sexual abuse as well. The people are cut-off from any other support system and increased abuse becomes more and more possible and probable.
You can google this group and there is a lot more information on line. There is a wikipedia article on National Labor Federation and an essay at:
http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org/index.php/Criticism_of_NATLFED.
I think that most cults work like this, religious and non-religious. Perhaps this example will shed some light on how intelligent people with no "flaw" are recruited into cults.
(Original Air Date: 11/05/08) It’s hard to believe, but in America alone, there may be as many as 5,000 religious groups preying upon the weak and vulnerable, and all in the name of God. Dr. Phil’s guests have warnings for you and your children. Seeta says when her 18-year-old daughter joined a religious group called 1 Mind Ministries, she left home with her 7-month-old son and never returned. Soon afterward, Seeta received the horrifying news that her grandson was found dead and her daughter was being charged with murder. Learn the disturbing details of this case and why Seeta says her daughter is innocent. Then, meet Norman, a college-educated husband and father who moved his family hundreds of miles to join a religious group that came with a price he says he never expected. Norman says he was enticed to join the House of Yahweh because of his strong desire to be part of a group. The House of Yahweh is a mysterious organization out of Abilene, Texas, led by Yisrayl Hawkins, a man who some say has more than 30 wives. As Norman and his family prepared for the end of the world, as Yisrayl Hawkins preached, Norman says he eventually realized why they were selected to join the group. You won’t believe the reason he gives! Then, meet a former wife of Yisrayl Hawkins, and learn the warning signs of mind control. Talk about the show here.
