Inside a cult: How control, belief, and belonging shape lives
Key topics:
How cults use manipulation, control, and belonging to recruit and retain members
Warning signs and psychological tactics common across cults
A survivor’s firsthand experience growing up and leaving a cult
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By Tendani Mulaudzi
Browse through any streaming service and you may spot the fascination and preoccupation with cults in the vast array of documentaries on cults. Wild, Wild Country (Netflix), the Osho cult following in the US which led the largest bioterror attack in US history by poisoning food at local Oregon establishments in 1894, is an example of how far cults can go. Another example is Escaping Twin Flames (Netflix), a more contemporary cult following of a couple named Shaleia and Jeff Divine called Twin Flames Universe. Targeting those who’ve had trouble finding love, the Twin Flames Universe “assisted” in identifying and finding twin flames for those who signed up. The cult used strong coercion to convince members that the more they got involved and the more money they spent on finding their twin flames, the more likely it was that they would find their soulmates.
There are countless more examples, some famous and many more that aren’t high profile. According to a 2017 study published in Psychiatry Research, a cult “can be seen as an organized group or a solitary person whose purpose is to dominate cult members by using psychological manipulation and pressure strategies”. Cults play on innate human attributes such as the need to belong and be accepted. “When we interviewed former cult members regarding the factors that had encouraged them to join the cultic group, they mainly reported spirituality, personal development, and life dissatisfaction,” the study adds.
Cult expert Rick Ross of Cult Education Institute says there are warning signs to look for when attempting to recognize a cult in full force. These include: “absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability; no tolerance for questions or critical inquiry; no meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement; unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions; there is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil; former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances; there are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader; followers feel they can never be ‘good enough’; the group/leader is always right; and, finally, the group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing ‘truth’ or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.”
So if it looks like a cult, feels like a cult and behaves like a cult according to these warning signs? It is probably a cult. Tina Kapp, 44, is a cult survivor of the Family International, which began as The Children of God in 1968. Kapp was born into the cult and says, “It is the only life I knew until I was 30.”
The Children of God was originally started in California in the United States and began as a missionary breakaway group from church traditions in order to keep simpler traditions for themselves. “A lot of cults start with very genuine motives but then as soon as you get a leader involved, it starts getting twisted and they start wanting more control and they start coming up with their own hare-brained ideas and I think that’s how all cults get astray,” says Kapp. “But they tend to attract very sincere people. So you’ll find the people who are really manipulative and then the ones who are there because they’re really trying to do something genuine for God, which is what kept everyone there for so long.”
Kapp’s mother was the latter, as she was visiting the US from Australia as a missionary at the time she joined. As a gay and alternative woman, Kapp’s mother was initially accepted into the cult but later on, the leader decided to ban female homosexuality along with male homosexuality, which was originally disallowed to begin with.
“It was very free sex, free love. That was a big thing, you weren’t allowed to sleep with anyone outside of the cult but within the cult they encouraged extramarital relationships, which they called sharing.” It was also a way for the cult to increase members of the Family at a rapid rate, as protection was discouraged. It was also a tool to keep people within the cult, as it made it more difficult to leave if you had a large family and kids to support.
Kapp continues, “It was very hard for families to have a closed unit, they really wanted everyone to feel like they were part of the bigger ‘family’ and parents were often taught that their kids were part of the Lord’s family and they needed to put God’s work before their children. So while there was a lot of control, we were all very convinced that Jesus was coming back very soon so there was no point in higher education, the only career that was acceptable was being a missionary, anything else was basically a temptation of the devil. You’re brainwashed to believe that everyone outside of your cult isn’t to be trusted.”
Life within the cult
“I personally knew that I wanted to be a performer by the time I was five. I was lucky enough to have performing be a part of my life through charity shows. I grew up in Japan, in an international school that was run by this cult but to keep up appearances they tried to make it look a bit more mainstream like a glorified home school setup so education wise, by that point, they were using a British form of education but they didn’t believe in anything after high school.” By creating children’s educational videos for the cult while at her school in Japan, Kapp got to be highly involved in the creation of these videos, allowing her to add to her repertoire of performing.
Kapp does see this as a positive aspect in a way. “You take the good with the bad. While the cult was very unhealthy, there were a few benefits, which are growing up with a lot of kids, travelling a lot with missionary parents so you get a lot of exposure to different cultures and working with young and old people through fundraising and charity work.”
Meeting her second husband (who was not part of the cult) at 30 years old was the beginning of a turning point for Kapp; this was when she first considered leaving the cult. “He was quite attracted to the faith and the camaraderie and the genuine people I was working with at the time. So he was almost getting pulled towards it and I was sort of thinking for the first time that this was really not for me. The cult was also disbanding and a big wave of people left around this time.” Kapp had been married within the cult and had a daughter, who has recently completed her master’s degree in genetics, but filed for divorce when she found out that her husband was having extramarital affairs with his best friend’s girlfriend. “Even though ‘sharing’ was a thing to support unity and eliminate loneliness, very twisted views once you’re out of it, in later years it became a personal choice. When the affair happened, [his mistress] and I had to work on various charity projects together so there was no way of getting any distance. If I threatened to leave, he would tell me that he would take my daughter away and of course, I just knew nothing better.”
Kapp, who has been running her own entertainment company in South Africa since 2010, has had to adjust to living in the “real world” after living most of her life within the cult. “The biggest trait that has been hard to overcome is people pleasing, because you’re constantly told that to be a good example, so everything you do is about how you appear to ‘outside people’, as they call it. You have to be a Christian missionary at all times, you can’t really let your hair down. On top of this, having grown up in Japan it’s also just a cultural thing. You constantly put yourself and your own needs last and mental health is obviously just not an option; you need to power through and pray if you have a problem. I think that was the biggest psychological on all of us. [Those of us who have left] say that it’s amazing that we can actually speak our minds now and put our foot down and tell people when they’re not good for us.”