if you guys could take a look at this and reblog, it would mean everything to me. gore is my sister’s best friend and this whole thing has been devastating to the family
(My authority: born & raised in a very cultlike church of only 20-ish attendees, a lot of research attending the departure from that church)
a person i follow reblogged a post today to respond to the OP’s open question: were they vulnerable to being sucked into a cult? and I wrote up this longass response to send to OP but then felt it was .. well. long. so I’m making it into a separate post instead of flooding a stranger with words they didn’t ask for.
tl;dr: Q: are you vulnerable to being sucked into a cult or cultlike community? A: IMO: almost definitely yes. (we all are.)
cults and cultlike communities suck in vulnerable people looking for safety, camaraderie/a social circle, a meaning for their life, an explanation for their trauma, etc etc by promising to provide the thing they’re looking for.
the insidious thing is that cults actually do provide the intangible desired thing, usually. Friends? a cult is a ready-made social circle. a meaning to life? cults certainly will give you a purpose for living. A reason for your trauma? A cult will tell you who to blame for everything wrong with your life. Safety? well – they’ll convince you that everyone outside the cult is your enemy/untrustworthy down the line, but the good news is you’ll feel safe in your cult space.
Once a cult inducts somebody by filling their emotional or social need, what entangles members isn’t usually an instant, deep loyalty to The Cause or The Leader or whatever. It’s community and the sense of belonging it engenders.
With increasing quickness, the cult community creates the sense of being a member of the ‘in’ group. you and your cult friends are In the Know. people outside your group are ignorant of the truth. And because of this, it doesn’t take long for a new person to feel that they can’t have true friendship with people outside of the cult. they can never be fully honest with them (unless they’re interested in joining).
outside friendships fall away. now you have no meaningful social circle outside the cult, putting you into a social echo chamber of people who all believe the exact same things and raising the stakes of leaving the cult. where would you go? you have no other real friends.
At this point a person is pretty well ‘in’. if it’s a true cult, this is where your investment level means you’re ready to have your loyalty tested: are you willing to take the (economic/social/physical/faith) leap the cult is asking you to take, or will you turn back, be abandoned by everyone you care about*, and left alone and friendless?
(*because as you already know, people In the Know can’t really be friends with people who choose to not be In the Know. they’ll be forced to abandon you.)
basically: the choice about your willingness to bend to authority isn’t asked until the deck is heavily stacked against you. all your chips are on the table. you’ve invested almost everything. will you invest the last bit you’ve got? and if you decide ‘yes’ – which many people do, because where else can they go? – escape becomes nigh impossible.
the only sure(-ish) defense against getting sucked into a cult is satisfaction with your life: having self-assurance about your purpose, your choices, and your social circle, plus a sense of good health and economic security. hardly anyone has all these things at once.
because of this, it’s my opinion that literally everyone on Earth is susceptible to getting sucked into a cult. almost everyone has some emotional weakness, something that makes them feel inadequate or afraid: if a cult happens to hit on that Achilles heel, you’re vulnerable to them. and frankly: if you get sucked into a cult, it’s not your fault. cults are designed to recruit.
regarding cultlike communities specifically:
there are ‘cults’ that aren’t actually cults, just similar to them. true cults glorify and enrich a person, the leader; cultlike groups usually glorify an ideology.
the major commonality between cults and cultlike groups is that both demand/strongly encourage your loyalty above anything else: above your happiness, above existing friendships/social ties, and above human respect or decency towards others, particularly outsiders.
cultlike groups are more common than cults. they’re easier to escape in a strict sense b/c usually there’s no leader controlling the strings, sucking every dollar and moment of your life out of you, but the social investment can get very high and create high stakes to leaving the community anyway:
having been so utterly radicalized by the echo chamber of the cultlike group, their understanding of the world is alien to non-members; it takes a while to deprogram.
people who leave these groups can be sure of being vilified by their old friends & probably harassed, and
they frequently have few friends outside the group to support their departure.
big, well-known examples of cultlike-but-not-strictly-a-cult groups include Radfems/TERFs/SWERFs, Christian Dominionism, & each individual alt-right white supremacist organization.
(the fandom cultlike baby of radfems and dominionism is anti-shipping/kink/’fujoshi’/nsfw, combining purity culture & swerf politics. the aphobic cultlike baby of radfem ideology is REG.)
you can watch your friends groups for warning signs of becoming cultlike* by asking yourself a few questions occasionally:
has my friendsgroup ostracized and turned on a friend when they said they didn’t agree with an opinion the rest of us held? was it a rapid/sudden turn without allowing any discussion or debate? was it so vicious it made me afraid to express a dissenting opinion?
do I feel pushed/goaded to dissociate from friends who don’t hold the same opinions as my main friendsgroup, even if it’s against my wishes? does my friendsgroup talk disdainfully of all people who aren’t in our group or engage in ‘us vs the world’ language frequently?
Realistically, is there anything I wouldn’t do in the name of protecting/advancing the beliefs of my friends? If I think there are limits on what’s okay to do on behalf of our beliefs, would my friends agree? Am I afraid to tell them I think there are limits?
If someone in my friendsgroup hurts me, would I be afraid to confront them? would I feel like I’m betraying my whole friend circle by saying somebody did something harmful? Would I be afraid of severe consequences, like having my friends turn on me, even if I was believed?
If the answer to these questions suggest that loyalty may be more important than being kind or respectful to one another in your friendsgroup, that’s a warning sign of toxicity and potentially cultish dynamics. D:
(*use your discretion, dangit. obviously this isn’t a 1:1 for-sure correlation to your friendsgroup becoming shitty.)
and here’s some good reading on the subject of cults/cultlike groups:
Dominionism Rising – focus piece on the cultlike ‘Dominionist’ movement that is (quietly) pushing an anti-Christian agenda in US Christian circles. shows how cultlike thinking can deeply influence less cultish circles.
the left is and will always be full of both real people with all possible opinions and enemies of the left trying to sabotage and/or fuck with us. sometimes the sabotage techniques will be similar to some real leftists’ genuine views/tactics, because such is the diversity of opinion among both the left and the anti-left (i.e. some saboteurs will think “wow that leftist group’s tactics will destroy the left; let’s help” and even if we actually support the group and its tactics we probably don’t want to work with the infiltrators who actually hate us.) if we accept that this can be done by the feds i don’t know why it couldn’t also be done by agents of other states or organizations that have an interest in destabilizing the american left. (again, even if we may think their tactics are good and not actually destabilizing.) yes it’d be good if tumblr would root out the feds too but we know they’re not gonna do that (in part because that would put them in a completely different legal position). we also don’t want to over-police our own ranks looking for traitors in every shadow; it’s a hard balance but surely it’s a problem as old as leftist organizing itself.
Those who make the climb up Blanca Peak know that it’s an incredible mountain. But for Len Necefer, CEO of Natives Outdoors and an obsessed Navajo climber who has summited Blanca six times, there is more to tell beyond the visceral physical experience. In the Diné language, the peak is called Sisnaajini, and it marks the eastern boundary of the traditional Navajo Nation—the place where the sun rises to begin the day. Sisnaajini features in several Navajo songs that tell the chapters of the nation’s history, and when Necefer climbs it, he is thinking not only about its incredible granite. He also reveres it for the sacred place that it is, and wonders what the standard route to the summit was for his ancestors 10,000 years ago.
But since the American education system does a terrible job of covering the pre-Colombian history of the United States, this added perspective on Sisnaajini—even the idea that it has another name to begin with—is lost on most non–Native American adventurers. To try to remediate this ignorance, Necefer started playing around with a very simple, nonintrusive tool to pique interest about the indigenous history of the outdoor places many of us love: geotags on Instagram and Facebook.
By providing outdoor enthusiasts the opportunity to rename places with their Native American words—Mukuntuweap for Zion Canyon, or Babad Do’ag for Arizona’s Mount Lemmon, for example—Necefer hopes to encourage those who already have a deep connection to a natural place to investigate that peak or landscape’s indigenous significance and history. Along with partners like Joseph Whitson and his Indigenous Geotags, Necefer is trying to promote a deeper connection to landscapes and the passion to protect those places.
While Necefer doesn’t expect that the European names of cherished outdoor places will be swapped out for their indigenous ones, he does hope that a greater understanding of the Native American histories of these places—places they have cherished, recreated on, and managed sustainably for hundreds or thousands of years—will increase public appreciation for them. And maybe even spur some people to respect those places more.
“It’s not respectful to go climb a church,” Necefer says. “That’s a
mainstream cultural norm. But the idea of respecting native sacred
spaces in the same way is a pretty new discussion, at least on a
national level.” Necefer believes, for instance, that the campers at
Lake Como who left the pile of trash that he stumbled across during his
first visit to Blanca would have paused before doing so if there was any
information to let them know it was a sacred Navajo site.
As
Necefer has sought to increase awareness of Native American history, he
has had to reconcile his own passion for outdoor recreation with what he
initially perceived as restrictions surrounding how indigenous sacred
sites “should” be respected. “The first time I went to climb Blanca, I
was pretty nervous,” Necefer says. “I was worried about how I would be
perceived in my community and in my family. But after chatting it over
with them, it wasn’t a problem—they just told me to be reverent of the
place, and to behave myself.” Ultimately, he has come to the conclusion
that outdoor recreation in sacred places is appropriate as long as a
spirit of reverence accompanies it. “Some, but not all, native peoples
think [these peaks] are too sacred to go to the top,” he says. “But I
think it’s really important [to go to the top] because a lot of Navajo
folks don’t have the means to come and access these mountains and
experiences, and it’s great to share what it looks like up top, and get
to know it, and impart that knowledge on others and share how
fantastically beautiful [these places] are, to inspire others—and not
just natives—to protect these places. For Necefer, a visceral, intimate
appreciation for place is the common ground on which all other
appreciations are built.
Necefer points to the fraught history of
Wyoming’s Devils Tower National Monument as an example of how adventure
can coexist with reverence. The monolith of stone is a sacred site for
Northern Plains Indians, including the Lakota, Dakota, and Cheyenne, who
call the place “Bear’s Lodge.” In the 1990s, a coalition of native
nations asked for a voluntary ban on climbing the tower’s renowned
cracks in June, out of respect for the tribal ceremonies that take place
at its base in mid-summer. Afterward, the number of climbers attempting
the tower’s routes fell from a monthly average of 1,200 to less than
200. “Provided the information, the majority of people will make
appropriate decisions,” Necefer says. (There is currently an effort
under way to formally rename the tower Bear’s Lodge, though it has met resistance from state and local politicians worried about the impact on tourism.)
The years-long campaign to establish Bears Ears National Monument in
southern Utah offers another example of how Western ideas about
conservation can combine with Native American traditions about sacred
sites and land management. The effort to establish Bears Ears brought
together five Native American nations that didn’t always see eye-to-eye,
and at the same time created new alliances between those nations and
the outdoor recreation industry and conservation groups like the Sierra
Club. These sometimes insular communities teamed up to advocate for the
national monument’s establishment for both its cultural and outdoor
recreational values. That alliance succeeded in avoiding the flawed
conservation view of the area as a pristine “wilderness” free of
people—an idea that can do great harm to indigenous communities by
negating their history and connection to the land, along with their
generations-long sustainable management of landscapes.
I think some people don’t know what a “psyop” is and are like…reflexively objecting to the idea that a Russian psyop A.) happened, or B.) worked and people disbelieve it which is also how you know it was successful.
a psyop is a psychological operation. It’s a tactic, usually from a government, enacted upon a group of individuals (of varying sizes, kinds, etc).
I don’t see anything wrong with looking at wiki’s definition of what a US PsyOp is defined as:
planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
People seem to mistakenly believe that people (buzzfeed?) is claiming that Black Lives Matter was a Russian Psyop. That’s not the case (not in the Buzzfeed article, and not seriously anywhere I’ve seen).
RATHER, it seems that the Russian PSYOP targeted BLM. BLM is not the psyop itself. The psyop just happened to target that movement (as well as other social justice/liberal movements).
The people who seem to object to the idea that this was a Russian psyop are also often reasoning this can’t be a Psyop because…the CIA/FBI successfully infiltrated liberal movements (particularly Black-led ones) before?
Historically, our very own government used psyop and infiltration tactics to do the exact same thing to similar US populations that people are uncovering about Russia. Seeing people claim that this whole psyop thing is “people are saying BLM is a Russian Psyop!!” is like people trying to say “they claimed the Black Panthers was a CIA/FBI psyop!!!”
When the reality is that the psyops/infiltration targeted BLM, or targeted the Black Panthers. It seems…really important that people know that! and it’s like…i keep seeing the SAME people who seem aware the FBI/CIA fucked over groups in the civil rights movements ALSO deny these bloggers were Russian psyops which is weird?? Both things can be true.
This isn’t an accident, it’s super intentional. The whole point is to choose a group of people to target to influence, then assimilate into said community, and then influence or undermine it. It’s effective if you choose a group which is marginalized. It’s more effective if that group would stand to lose something by being publicly undermined. It’s really effective when the end result is a lot of people going “calling this a psyop is a psyop! It’s not their government undermining us, it’s our government doing that.”
Eliciting that response is tactically clever, because you aren’t even wrong for criticizing our government, but also you become complicit in covering up the tracks of the original [outside] influence because you are more willing to blame whatever would normally be the cause of the problem.
Alright I’m just going to add a few things, especially because of this:
This is part of a much larger ongoing Federal investigation. Tumblr delayed on acting on this for months, and in the end seems to have “found only 84 IRA blogs.”
Now “evidence” is presumably how these blogs were proven to be Russian. It seems that Tumblr just cross-referenced already identified IRA backed usernames and IP addresses. We know that platforms like Twitter, Youtube, Google, and Facebook ALL were impacted by this. We had federal court hearings about it:
In September [2017], Facebook acknowledged that it had discovered 3,000 ads from 470 accounts connected to Internet Research Agency. It’s since revealed that those accounts collectively created 80,000 pieces of content that may have been shared, both organically and through ads, with 126 million people. It shared that information with Twitter and Google. Now Twitter says it has identified 2,752 accounts linked to Internet Research Agency, while Google says it has identified 18 YouTube channels connected to the group.
So just from this, we have 470 facebook accounts, 2,752 twitter accounts, and 18 youtube channels. Now we have also identified about 84 tumblr accounts. I don’t think this number is particularly low, nor do I think it’s very high either. I do think that tumblr did the bare minimum of identifying and purging IRA run blogs already identified under federal investigation. I don’t believe tumblr did any original investigation work, and instead simply cleared our already known and identified foreign actors. But that’s my personal belief, not a stated fact.
At any rate, this has been a work in progress for years:
In April 2014, the IRA created a new unit, known as the Translator Project, that focused on “the US population and conducted operations on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,” according to the indictment. By the following month, the project outlined, apparently in an internal document, an explicit goal: “Spread distrust toward the candidates and the political system in general.”
So we have documentation of the goal, we know the IRA itself exists, we’ve had federal investigations about Russian interference in the election, and we know the means with which they interfered (social media.).
Also let’s be clear here: Tumblr didn’t do this out of the kindness of their hearts, a particular political belief, or because they care more about faux-BLM supporting accounts than they do deleting real life Nazis. They did it because the federal government compelled them to help a larger investigation.
The blogging platform Tumblr has unmasked 84 accounts that it says were used by a shadowy Russian internet group to spread disinformation during the 2016 US election campaign.
Tumblr said it uncovered the scheme in late 2017, helping an investigation that led to the indictment in February of 13 individuals linked to the Russia-based Internet Research Agency (IRA).
By the way, this wasn’t just a couple of fake accounts, some of these people stole the social security numbers of living Americans, then opened accounts with paypal. They had fake IDs, stolen SSNs, paypal accounts, fake lives. They also hired actual American citizens to do a variety of different things for photo ops. We also have proof because Russian actors in the IRA admitted they got caught and were doing this.
There’s one more thing, which I think is also confusing or bothering people.
Question:why did these accounts spend time being largely pro-liberal/leftist movements?
Answer: across all media platforms? They didn’t. They were spread across all “sides.” Their goal was not simply electing Trump or being conservative, their goal was to spread distrust in the system and undermine the election process. Then to sow discord. They weren’t all left or all right. They were everything, with the intent to cause conflict.
Burr, the committee chair, highlighted two Facebook posts from a Russian propaganda group called Internet Research Agency that created a conflict on the streets of Houston by drawing two groups of protestors to fake “rallies” at the same place and time. One post, shared by the fake Facebook page Heart of Texas, promoted a purported protest against the “Islamization of Texas.” The second post, uploaded by the fake page United Muslims of America, promoted an event aimed at saving “Islamic knowledge.” Both groups bought ads to publicize their events, spending about $200 in total.
Burr then showed images of the resulting clash outside the Islamic Center in Houston, dramatizing how fake accounts can produce real conflict. Skeptics of the impact of Russian meddling in the US election have argued that just because Russia endeavored to influence American voters doesn’t mean they did. But the fact that people showed up for these protests, designed to foment anger on both sides, demonstrates that influence.
So a few people have suggested that the tumblr accounts would sometimes say inflammatory things like talking about white genocide, or hating the whites, or whatever else, and then the IRA would then turn around and use their own posts and spread that information to 4chan and reddit to stir up more anger from neonazis and white supremacists.
I don’t have actual proof of that specific thing happening on hand, but it is very much in line with other actions the IRA took in this psyop, so I find it very reasonable. Tumblr was probably not a main point of actual influence action, but rather a place to disseminate extra “proof” of whatever angle or information they were trying to promote.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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