Is your somewhat toxic rock-climbing group a cult? Probably not, but Shanti Mathias learns how to tell what is at New Zealand’s first cult conference.
“To a lot of outsiders, this conference might have elements of a cult,” says an audience member into the proffered microphone. “So what is the boundary between some kind of social group and a cult?” It’s time for audience questions after the keynote speech at the Decult conference in Christchurch, a gathering held over the weekend for people wanting to raise awareness of the danger of cults.
The event is sold out, and almost all the seats of the event room at Christchurch’s central Tūranga library are taken. I can see the comparison to a cult easily. There are the volunteers in uniforms – a black Decult T-shirt – ushering us to the front. There are the involved leaders almost everyone I talked to at the event mentioned with reverence: Anke Richter, New Zealand-based author of Cult Trip, and Janja Lalich, a sociologist and founder of the Lalich Center on Cults and Coercion in the US. There is the consuming obsession that has brought many to this room, a sense that cults – also known as “high control” or “high demand” groups – are harmful, but also interesting.
Calling something a cult, almost always meant derogatorily, is a common way to denote “groups of people who are obsessed with something”. It’s so common, in fact, that there’s a popular podcast called “Sounds Like a Cult”, which looks at boarding schools, ballet, Lululemon, K-Pop and Reddit as “cults”, just to name a few of its subjects.
But there are specific definitions of what can make something a cult, not just the obsession your friend has recently developed with reformer Pilates. Janja Lalich, a short woman with a dry sense of humour, gives the keynote speech, following local MP Duncan Webb; at one point she asks for water and he hops up to find her a glass. Lalich, who describes the left-wing social activist group she joined in the 1970s as a cult, has identified specific characteristics. A cult has a charismatic leader, who inspires love and fear, a transcendent belief system – not necessarily religious – which creates a shared sense of purpose and commitment, a system of control, promoting identification and unity with the group, and a system of influence, creating duty and guilt. This adds up to a model she calls “bounded choice”, detailed in her 2004 book of the same name.
You might have a sense of duty to show up for your social sports team practice each week, or pay to see a charismatic speaker, or feel influenced into going to the same gig as your colleagues – all elements of everyday life that share characteristics with a cult. But it’s the all-encompassing nature of a cult that separates it from, say, people who are passionate fans of Taylor Swift. For what it’s worth, Lalich answers the question asked by the audience member by noting that many people in abusive relationships find that the mechanism of influence, fear and power seen in cults matches their experiences, and thinks that there’s more research to be done into “one-on-one” cults.
At a breakaway session, I get a more specific insight into the mechanism cults use to attract people and keep them there. Laura Muir, the best speaker of the parts of the conference I attend, describes how she joined Korean Christian cult Shincheonji, overcoming her doubts about the lies the recruiters told her about the “Bible study” she was attending, and eventually becoming a recruiter herself. She describes how potential recruits had detailed reports made about them, so the “teaching” and “prophecy” explored in classes felt exactly tailored to them – because it was. As the cult took up more and more of her time, it was hard to maintain connections to friends and family on the outside; it was only during a Covid lockdown that she realised she didn’t want to be giving her life to something she didn’t truly believe in.
As the sold-out conference and long signing queues indicate, cults are hot right now. “People are interested in cults because it’s so insidious and devastating, so easy for people to end up somewhere they don’t want to be,” says Maya, an attendee who is a health support worker hoping to move more into the emotional side of supporting people – one of several healthcare professionals I meet at the conference. She nibbles on a chocolate-apricot biscuit provided as morning tea, looking out at the sunny Christchurch street. “People are really interested in narcissism at the moment too, you see that a lot in cults.”
Erik, a volunteer who got involved after emailing Richter with praise for her book Cult Trip, draws a comparison with reality TV. “[Cults] are a lifestyle we’re not used to, a kind of fishbowl – like watching a reality show about celebrities with so much money to spend on dumb things.”
“For some people, it’s the thought that ‘that could be me’; for others, it’s the idea that ‘that couldn’t happen to me, I’m too smart for that,’” says Rebecca, a law student interested in the legal side of running a cult, who’s researching the sovereign citizen movement and online radicalisation. She’s been reflecting on the similarities between her sports team and cults. “Drawing that line between a cult group and another group is really hard. Maybe it’s not a cult until there starts being harm, but when does the harm start?” When Rebecca told her friends she was coming to the conference, she was surprised how many of them had watched the recent Gloriavale documentary.
Weaving between attendees having morning tea – one sports a “let’s talk about sects baby” tote bag, and many are clutching cult books from the conference bookstall – I stop to talk to Sherrie D’Souza, a board member of Recovering from Religion, an organisation that connects people wanting to leave faith groups with peer and professional support. A third generation Jehovah’s Witness, D’Souza is here from Australia, where she’s been trying to get more people involved in the non-religious movement. When she left the Jehovah’s Witnesses, D’Souza felt alone, and peer support was crucial. “I made sense of my story when I heard theirs,” she says. “There is so much potential in joining together.”
Through the weekend, there are lots of events aimed at revealing the harm of cults, from talks by former Jehovah’s Witnesses, Exclusive Brethren and Gloriavale members, to the unmet medical needs of cult members and survivors to the impact on kids of being raised in a cult. The focus is mostly on cults in the present, rather than considering the kinds of cultures that cults come out of, or whether the 20th and 21st century rise of cults is a departure from the past.
Erik, an American, is particularly looking forward to a Sunday event on LGBTQ+ youth in cults. When he finishes his working holiday in New Zealand, he’s hoping to find employment as a social worker. “I want to be able to support someone coming out of a cult and learning more about themselves for the first time,” Erik says, shifting his sticker-encrusted Nalgene bottle from hand to hand.
That Erik is one of dozens of volunteers at the conference reveals a fundamental difficulty with encountering cults: the draw to community and shared belief is often not compensated financially, and yet to be with other people who believe what you do can be a profound, vital experience. The Decult conference isn’t exactly the opposite of a cult: the opposite of a cult might be something like social isolation, complete distrust of authority, an unwillingness to help unless you know exactly what you’ll get out of it. Instead, the conference feels like a whole lot of people, some with lived experiences in cults, some curious or professionally interested, gathering together with the hope of finding community that isn’t based on coercion and control.
Attendee Rebecca, at least, has been thinking about how some of the ideas in the conference might apply to her own life. “I want to support my kids to question power but I also want them to believe in science. What if they question that?” she asks. “Cults show us how we are all looking for purpose, and meaning and belonging, but they weaponise that desire for community instead.”