Cults Can’t Hide!

How can you tell a perfectly decent religious organisation from an extremely dangerous, totalitarian one?

How do you beat cults when even the word itself is understood differently by everyone, from psychologists to lawyers, not to mention ordinary citizens? And what if a totalitarian religious or commercial organisation also disguises itself as an innocent public association, where people are offered either a “path to yourself” or the chance to get fabulously rich by selling yet another “divine remedy” that cures everything? Latvia has about 1,000 (!) officially registered religious organisations alone, not counting the huge number of disguised ones…

In our country, these many-faced “saviours of souls” are opposed only by the Latvian Committee for Combating Totalitarian Sects. Its co-chair, Viktor Yolkin, has developed his own method for exposing the “saints”. He is helped by Svetlana Krilova, who is carrying out two studies at once: one sociolinguistic, at the University of Latvia, and one psychological, at one of Moscow’s leading universities, the Higher School of Economics. She is now starting a piece of work that is unique of its kind and will help both ordinary people and state institutions in their dealings with totalitarian religious organisations.

Protecting someone you love

“When I was at school, and then at university, I often saw people who had joined cults,” Svetlana tells Vesti. “They were far from the least intelligent people: educated, strong-minded, and still they fell under the influence of a totalitarian organisation. Why did this happen? I saw how their lives changed, and I heard terrible stories from their relatives.

“I became curious: why did these people end up in a cult rather than taking up something else, something safer? And finally, how did the leaders of these organisations (or the local representatives of international structures) manage to draw in even people who could easily find reliable information about the group? So it is not only the foolish and uneducated who can be caught by an extremely dangerous organisation? Then how?

“At some point, several years ago, I met Viktor Yolkin and offered him my help. Above all, I wanted to help people who had got caught up in cults. It turned out that the main help here lies in ‘prevention’: informing people so that they know what awaits them in a particular organisation and what it really is. It was also important to understand what drives a person to join a cult, and which values (spiritual, physical, material?) they are looking for.

“I admit that before I began working with the committee, I had no idea the situation with cults in Latvia was so serious. I started talking with people who had managed to leave cults, and with their relatives. Now I am carrying out research at the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies at the University of Latvia, and at the Faculty of Psychology of Russia’s Higher School of Economics. Using the academic resources of universities in two countries, I am studying this phenomenon, the ‘cult’…”

The “soul experts” under the magnifying glass

“At the University of Latvia, my work involves a sociolinguistic analysis of the concept of sekta (‘cult’),” our interviewee continues. “Ask the first person you meet what a cult is. Most likely they will tell you it is sheer horror, that they practically eat children alive there; or, on the contrary, that it is just a harmless group of ‘strange people’. And nobody really understands. I am analysing the concept itself, using linguistics, sociology, law, religious studies and psychology. I plan to run a large survey of the Russian-speaking population (at the first stage only in Latvia, Moscow and the Moscow region) in order to understand how exactly the word is understood today.

“Everyone in our country has heard the word sekta. But why do we call particular people sectarians? Right now the concept itself is badly muddled. Definitions, even in explanatory dictionaries and various academic reference works, differ from one another and differ significantly from how the term is understood publicly. This vagueness leaves room for speculation, and that plays into the hands of cult leaders. For example, we blur the concept by calling any group at all a cult (even a cross-stitch club!), and at the same time we often hear the claim that there are practically no totalitarian religious organisations today (if they are understood as closed communities of hermits).

“Is yet another yoga seminar a cult? Is the work of a psychologist in a circle of Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous sectarian? What about charismatic churches like ‘New Generation’, which are perfectly well socialised in society: are they cults? Or, for instance, are all organisations connected with the international Church of Scientology totalitarian? We decided to put an end to the speculation and to clarify the concept in the light of today.

“Nothing like this has ever been done in Latvia. We invite all readers of Vesti to take part in the study, and you would be giving us invaluable help! To take part, you can write to antisekt@inbox.lv or call (+371) 26644195. Filling in the questionnaire takes only 5–7 minutes. Participation is completely anonymous…”

Crisis is a “divine” time

“Some people think there are fewer totalitarian religious cults (the brightest example is Scientology) and commercial cults (say, ‘Vision’) now than twenty years ago,” says Svetlana. “You are mistaken! Dangerous organisations are working powerfully now, just as they did in the early and mid-1990s and during the 2008 crisis. In the hardest periods, when there are economic squabbles, wars and political instability everywhere, totalitarian organisations recruit especially actively.

“A cult offers whatever you are looking for. Looking for friends? Here they are. God? Please! And so on… In the 1990s people were shaken and scattered, and Herbalife immediately offered to ‘pull them together’ and improve their health. During the 2008 crisis, Scientologists with their teaching of dianetics became especially active: they offered everyone to ‘find themselves’, ‘tested’ people’s health with various gadgets right on the street, invited them to watch a free film and attend psychology courses that would free them from any dependency. Then and now, all kinds of Indian-Latvian gurus operate successfully too (offering any system of yoga, laughter therapy, group sessions for finding ‘the god within’ and so on), along with various dubious cults based on Christianity and everything else the world has to offer.

“The same is true today: because of an unstable economic and cultural situation, it can be hard for a person to find support, to feel solid ground under their feet, for living a meaningful life and making the right decisions. Social uncertainty often leads people into religious cults. A destructive group, imitating the satisfaction of needs, uses the person for its own ends. It is important to remember that anyone, at some period of their life, can lose their footing! Nobody is insured against unforeseen events.

“But it matters where we look for support in difficult situations and whom we allow to influence us. The first person who knocked on our door at the right moment and offered help? Or do we look for that support in something bigger and act thoughtfully, whatever happens? Some people find protection and that very ground under their feet in a cult, and stay, gradually agreeing to all the group’s principles. What happens to such a person next? It is not hard to guess…

“Of course, at first the person does not suspect where they have ended up, and then suddenly their life begins to be tightly controlled. And when the poor soul is completely caught in the structure, they are made to work for next to nothing ‘for the good of the community’, and at some point the person’s whole life is under a hood and the unfortunate one is on a short leash. We are talking not only about religious cults but also about harsh commercial ones, of which there are plenty, where you are invited to become part of a financial pyramid by believing, for example, in the miraculous power of dubious dietary supplements,” Svetlana Krilova notes.

Operation: blow the mind

Viktor Yolkin, for his part, has developed a method for proving that a cult is a cult. His method was created at the Department of Social Psychology of the Faculty of Psychology at Moscow State University, where he completed his postgraduate studies and is now preparing to defend his dissertation.

“First of all, it is important to look at the characteristics of a given teaching,” says Viktor, who has come from Moscow to his native Riga for a few weeks. “The psychological influence used within the teaching is often hidden, and its real aims and objectives are never advertised. For example, the ‘Moonies’ of the Unification Church, founded by Sun Myung Moon, use such methods to draw people into religious networks: they act through various organisations ‘for peace’, ‘against drugs’, ‘for the health of young people’ and so on. A person who has just come along to get acquainted is not told that the organisation is a product of the ‘holy Moon’. That becomes clear later, when it may be too late.

“The method can also measure the degree of destructive influence. The first thing to pay attention to is the character of the teaching. When it claims to be the absolute and final truth, that is worth thinking about. What role does its leader claim? Most often he is an ‘absolute genius’ beyond question. The brightest example is Ron Hubbard, who created the Church of Scientology. Or the leader may be Christ himself, and there are quite a few of those in the world, Vissarion for example.

“We also look at other criteria, such as the group’s interference in, and control over, areas of a person’s life where they traditionally make their own decisions. No ‘civilised religion’ will monitor every step of its followers and demand total obedience from them. It will not demand that a person give up family and friends just because they do not share the group’s teaching, or tell them whom to marry or which profession to choose… Of course, techniques of psychological influence are always used to deprive the person of the ability to make a conscious choice in a given situation. The person will be cut off from alternative sources of information, and ‘group pressure’, manipulation, suggestion and the creation of fears and phobias will begin.

“Yes, there are plenty of decent organisations that really do help people. But the dangerous ones are FAR more numerous! The first questions that should occur to you when you meet an organisation are these:

Does it want money ‘from the client’? Does it exert control over you? Does its leader want power? Is there any attempt to interfere in the lives of its flock?

“If you decide to visit a particular organisation, do not be lazy: gather information about it, at least on the internet, where not everything written is nonsense. Friends, be careful!” Viktor Yolkin warns…

Source: press.lv/post/sekte-ne-skrytsya (in Russian)

Translated from the Russian original with the help of AI. Read the original (in Russian).