Reply To: Cults – the aftermath
To my mind, the attraction of that sort of community is in feeling special and a part of a close knit fellowship. The rest is just tinsel and ribbon.
A lot of the attraction of at least SOME cults is the feeling that you’re in on some special/elite/inner sanctum knowledge that the sheeple are unaware of. This is why people join cults they know will make them seem “different” from the average person, though to them different=special=smarter.
This explains why people join cults like Mormonism, The Seventh Day Adventists, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Scientology. Other people are not into it by choice. Rather, they are born into the cult, and leaving a cult is generally difficult, because it usually means shunning to one degree or another, losing contact with friends, family, and other loved ones.
It’s also a way to make oneself a center of attention. A friend of mine said of punkers and goths, “If you know you’re not that attractive, well, at least you can be interesting.”
