The study of sects is one of the most interesting fields of study within the branch of social psychology. But what does sect psychology consist of?

The Case of Charles Manson

In the late 1960s, an Ohio musician named Charles Manson established himself as a guru in San Francisco during the “Summer of Love”, a hippie festival and rally . His aspirations were to be famous and a millionaire, and he soon got his first group of followers, who formed a sect called “The Manson Family”.

Soon they all went to live on a ranch where Manson instructed them about what he called Helter Skelter (a term taken from the song with the same name by the Beatles ), a supposed race war between blacks and whites that was coming.

In the sect there used to be five women for every man, and they would have weekly psychedelic orgies with marijuana, peyote, LSD and statutory rape included. Manson saw to it that his followers lost their sexual taboos, inducing them to engage in behaviors related to homosexuality, anal sex, etc.

Charles Manson never killed anyone with his own hands, but his acolytes are credited with several murders , including that of Sharon Tate, then wife of Roman Polanski .

This introduction leads us to ask ourselves several questions. What leads someone to enter a cult and take obedience to extremes such as murder? What happens within sects? What is the psychological profile of their leaders?

Cults and their mental traps

Cults are complex groups, formed by a hierarchical and pyramidal structure, led by a charismatic guru who demands an exploitative type of devotion and dedication that usually ends up leading to emotional, social or economic damage to people.

Psychological profile of a cult leader

The psychological profile of a cult guru is highly complex . They are people with great capacity to seduce and entangle the participants of the group, so among their personal characteristics are loquacity, gab and a high degree of social skills. Sect leaders are capricious, tyrannical and even despotic, and end up abusing their members verbally, physically or sexually.

They cannot bear to have their authority questioned and seek to parasitize their members in order to extract all their resources from them.They are driven by narcissism and the need to control others to achieve their own ends.

They are fed by excessive egos and shape the world according to their own vision , manipulating individuals. They are specialists in capturing people’s weaknesses in order to provide them with what they need and thus attract them even more to them.

At what point does a person decide to join a cult?

Entry into these groups is usually smooth and progressive . Through a process of seduction, people are enraptured with promises. Usually this point coincides with a moment of personal crisis of the individual that increases his vulnerability and his need to find “magic” or “divine” solutions to his problems.

Also vulnerable are people with a strong degree of loneliness or an existential crisis that prevents them from finding meaning in their lives.

What happens within sects?

Within the sects , worldly tactics of social influence are employed, taken to an extreme that is neither permissible nor ethical.

The ideology imparted by the leader is the only valid one, and any hint of doubt that appears in the mind of the follower will be nullified by verbal abuse, humiliation, humiliation or ridicule. It is in the interest of the individual to bend his personality and end up following all the instructions given by the leader. An emotional destabilization of the members is therefore produced.

Secrecy

Within the sects there is a lot of secrecy . What happens inside cannot be told outside under any circumstances. Moreover, the members are made to believe that they are lucky to know such secrets, and they play with the feeling of exclusivity. Acolytes must feel important and lucky to receive such information.

The ultimate goals of sects

Cults don’t always look for sex or money. Most sects seek to gain power and control over the minds of their members. Money comes later, once the will has been controlled.

The individual believes that the donations he makes are voluntary, is not aware of the previous brainwashing he has undergone .

Basic characteristics of sects

According to the British sociologist Bryan Wilson , some characteristics common to all sects are as follows:

  • People join voluntarily , although it can be induced.
  • Membership may be subject to examination by the authorities of the group.
  • There may be a small elite of people who are assigned “secret knowledge” or special skills that can be reached by “climbing” within the group.
  • There is a pretension of exclusivity , so that anyone who contravenes the doctrine, moral or organizational precepts of the group is sanctioned.
  • Personal perfection is aspired to .

Dangers of entering a cult

Usually people don’t realize the danger of where they are going until they are already inside. Joining a cult can lead to serious damage in various areas of a follower’s life.

The main consequences are as follows:

  • Isolation of individuals from the world in general and from their family or personal relationships in particular.
  • Control of all the information that reaches them.
  • A fatalistic and demonising discourse is installed of the world and of people who are not part of the sect, so individuals are likely to develop strong feelings of fear and mistrust of life.
  • Loss of the ability to think critically , since there is no democracy in any of the links of the hierarchy and neither questions nor suggestions are allowed.
  • Mental destabilization of the members.
  • Exorbitant nature of the financial requirements .
  • Attacks on physical integrity .
  • Public order disturbances .

As in the case of Charles Manson, people are so emotionally and financially involved that they can commit crimes simply by obeying the leader’s instructions . The fact is that human beings can do unimaginable things because someone tells them to do them.

To know more

There are two theories that explain the behaviour of followers within sects:

  • The work of Solomon Asch and his theory of conformism, which describes the relationship between the reference group and the individual person. A subject who has neither the knowledge nor the ability to make decisions (as is the case with sect acceptances) will transfer decision making to the group and its hierarchy. The group will be the model of the person’s behaviour .
  • Stanley Milgram’s theory of reification, which states that the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person looks at himself as an instrument that realizes the desires of other people , and therefore does not consider himself responsible for his actions. It is the foundation, for example, of military respect for authority, where soldiers will obey and carry out the instructions given by superiors with the understanding that the responsibility lies with the latter.