International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 1, No. 1, 2010 77
Initialization: The Process of Giving
Meanings
Persons recruited into a cult suddenly realize
that their difficult current experiences are a part
of “God’s Plan” and that these experiences are
results of the fact that they “have not followed
the right path” or that these experiences “are
simply not important in the face of the
approaching of the end of the world.” Thanks to
the cult’s ideology, members’ traumatic
experiences obtain particular meaning and sense
and eventually can be understood. Ex-cult
members, as well as families of associated cult
members, defined this phenomenon as “a key-
experience which opens a totally new vision of
the world” (Kuncewicz, Opolska &Wasiak,
2000).
Conway and Siegelman (1979, 1982) treat such
experiences as a psychic disorder, which they
call “information disease” (or snapping). They
believe that constant information overload
and/or excessively strong experiences can create
many new nervous connections in the cerebral
cortex, which may manifest themselves as so-
called “sudden changes of personality.”
It should be noted that the development and
integration of neuron webs, particularly between
affection and cognitive webs, is also a key
mechanism in the psychotherapeutic process
(Cozolino 2004). A patient in the course of the
therapeutic process also experiences strong
emotions, and, with the help of the therapist,
attempts to express these through words, going
through “key experiences” (e.g., in
psychoanalytic psychotherapy so-called
“insight”), a process that enables the patient’s
understanding, giving sense to traumatic
experiences and developing new personality
aspects. In this case, it is important to ask the
question “What determines whether qualitatively
similar processes of giving meanings to a
person’s experiences are therapeutic or
disordered?”
Composing a Personal Story
It is likely that the very course of the
composition process is decisive as to the
disordered or therapeutic role of the cognitive
structuring of experiences. The cult
environment, in contrast to the
psychotherapeutic one, provides prepared
“external” patterns for narrative elaboration of
difficult experiences. The cult’s ideological
patterns prove highly complementary to the
specific experiences of some people (see:
Kuncewicz, 2002), like “an appropriate key fits
an appropriate lock” (see Rohmann, 2000).
For a person who joins a cult, this “key”
possesses great power for giving meaning to
traumatic experience fragments and thereby for
decreasing suffering. It is difficult, for this
reason, to abandon the rigid ideology of the
cult’s system (which does not include complex
human nature) even when it turns out to be
completely incompatible with other previously
constructed self-narrations, family narrations, or
social-cultural narrations. Perhaps a cult member
who is not willing to forfeit the benefits of the
ideological composing on of his most difficult
personal experiences is forced to make desperate
attempts at “re-composing” the remaining stories
about his life in accordance with the same cultic
pattern. Unfortunately, “cultic re-composing” of
the elements of the remaining life stories is held
on a strictly intellectual level that is abstracted
from experience.
Finally, the cult’s ideology performs a
disintegrative rather than integrative function.
Although it enables quick narrative “snapping”
of the defined traumatic experience fragment,
and thereby constructs a cohesive story of one’s
life, it also restricts access to a large
conglomerate of other experiences that are in
contradiction to the binding doctrine—e.g., to
warm feelings toward family members outside
the cult.
The price of composing an extremely
ideological life story is its narrowing into a one-
plot story. Autobiographical stories presented by
cult members usually concentrate on one central
theme: “liberation by the cult” (Kuncewicz,
1999). The stories are often composed according
to the following scheme: 1) “I searched for the
sense of life/close relations/
something important” (the main character’s
intention) 2) “Neither the world nor my
relatives understood me/
both the world and my relatives rejected me”
Initialization: The Process of Giving
Meanings
Persons recruited into a cult suddenly realize
that their difficult current experiences are a part
of “God’s Plan” and that these experiences are
results of the fact that they “have not followed
the right path” or that these experiences “are
simply not important in the face of the
approaching of the end of the world.” Thanks to
the cult’s ideology, members’ traumatic
experiences obtain particular meaning and sense
and eventually can be understood. Ex-cult
members, as well as families of associated cult
members, defined this phenomenon as “a key-
experience which opens a totally new vision of
the world” (Kuncewicz, Opolska &Wasiak,
2000).
Conway and Siegelman (1979, 1982) treat such
experiences as a psychic disorder, which they
call “information disease” (or snapping). They
believe that constant information overload
and/or excessively strong experiences can create
many new nervous connections in the cerebral
cortex, which may manifest themselves as so-
called “sudden changes of personality.”
It should be noted that the development and
integration of neuron webs, particularly between
affection and cognitive webs, is also a key
mechanism in the psychotherapeutic process
(Cozolino 2004). A patient in the course of the
therapeutic process also experiences strong
emotions, and, with the help of the therapist,
attempts to express these through words, going
through “key experiences” (e.g., in
psychoanalytic psychotherapy so-called
“insight”), a process that enables the patient’s
understanding, giving sense to traumatic
experiences and developing new personality
aspects. In this case, it is important to ask the
question “What determines whether qualitatively
similar processes of giving meanings to a
person’s experiences are therapeutic or
disordered?”
Composing a Personal Story
It is likely that the very course of the
composition process is decisive as to the
disordered or therapeutic role of the cognitive
structuring of experiences. The cult
environment, in contrast to the
psychotherapeutic one, provides prepared
“external” patterns for narrative elaboration of
difficult experiences. The cult’s ideological
patterns prove highly complementary to the
specific experiences of some people (see:
Kuncewicz, 2002), like “an appropriate key fits
an appropriate lock” (see Rohmann, 2000).
For a person who joins a cult, this “key”
possesses great power for giving meaning to
traumatic experience fragments and thereby for
decreasing suffering. It is difficult, for this
reason, to abandon the rigid ideology of the
cult’s system (which does not include complex
human nature) even when it turns out to be
completely incompatible with other previously
constructed self-narrations, family narrations, or
social-cultural narrations. Perhaps a cult member
who is not willing to forfeit the benefits of the
ideological composing on of his most difficult
personal experiences is forced to make desperate
attempts at “re-composing” the remaining stories
about his life in accordance with the same cultic
pattern. Unfortunately, “cultic re-composing” of
the elements of the remaining life stories is held
on a strictly intellectual level that is abstracted
from experience.
Finally, the cult’s ideology performs a
disintegrative rather than integrative function.
Although it enables quick narrative “snapping”
of the defined traumatic experience fragment,
and thereby constructs a cohesive story of one’s
life, it also restricts access to a large
conglomerate of other experiences that are in
contradiction to the binding doctrine—e.g., to
warm feelings toward family members outside
the cult.
The price of composing an extremely
ideological life story is its narrowing into a one-
plot story. Autobiographical stories presented by
cult members usually concentrate on one central
theme: “liberation by the cult” (Kuncewicz,
1999). The stories are often composed according
to the following scheme: 1) “I searched for the
sense of life/close relations/
something important” (the main character’s
intention) 2) “Neither the world nor my
relatives understood me/
both the world and my relatives rejected me”
