Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2005, Page 22
membership in any of their previous group affiliations, often including their families. Old
group affiliations and identities detract from the total commitment required by the cult.
Cults cannot effectively condition joiners unless the cult group is the joiners‘ only group
affiliation.14 An individual who has only one group affiliation has self-concept and self-
esteem that are totally dependent on retaining membership in that group. The completely
dependent individual is then willing to do whatever it takes to retain membership in the
group.
Although cults would like joiners to immediately and completely depluralize upon joining, in
reality depluralization can occur via several pathways over varying amounts of time. Indeed,
some individuals are suddenly inspired by the cult leaders to give up all of their old group
affiliations at once. However, other potential joiners go through a much slower
depluralization process. They may slowly abandon their ―mainstream‖ group affiliations
while attaching themselves to more marginal, but still somewhat mainstream, groups. After
a while they leave these marginal groups and join the extremist cult. Thus depluralization
could occur within days, or it could take years.15
Once a joiner‘s old group affiliations and group identities have been eliminated, the joiner is
more vulnerable to Phase 2. Self-deindividuation takes away an individual‘s personal
identity, both externally and internally. For example, many cult joiners give up their civilian
clothes and are then given uniforms to wear. Internally, all recruits are expected to give up
any values, beliefs, attitudes, or behavior patterns that deviate from the group values and
expectations. Deindividuated joiners give up their personal sense of right and wrong if it is
different from that of the leader. Furthermore, the joiners‘ broader view of reality—their
view of how the past, present, and future fit together to create the modern social world—
becomes aligned with that of the leader. Deindividuated persons stop thinking about their
own unique qualities. They absorb the concept that they are simply anonymous parts of the
greater whole, the cult.16
Phase 3, other-deindividuation, parallels joiner self-deindividuation. We categorize our social
world into those who are in the same groups as we are (―in‖ groups, ―us‖) and those who
are not in our groups (―others,‖ ―out‖ groups, ―them‖17). Many cults take this normal
categorization process a step further by identifying certain ―out‖ groups as enemies. Cult
joiners are then conditioned to deindividuate members of the enemy group. Enemy
deindividuation includes giving up any personal relationships with enemy group members,
knowing or referring to any enemies by individual name, or distinguishing any individual
attributes or characteristics among enemy members. All enemies become a homogeneous,
faceless mass: they all look alike, think alike, and act alike.18
Numerous studies have demonstrated that both types of deindividuation increase
aggression against members of enemy groups,19 20 a finding that is apparently related to the
fact that combat killing is less traumatic if the victim is further away from the killer.21 The
further away and less individually identifiable the victim is, the easier it is to deindividuate
that person and therefore to kill him or her.
Once cult joiners are deindividuated into ―us,‖ and cult enemies are deindividuated into
―them,‖ negative stereotyping of the enemy begins. This is the transition to Phase 4,
dehumanization. All positive characteristics (for example, moral virtue, intelligence,
responsibility, honesty, trustworthiness, reliability) are attributed to members of the ―in‖
group, and all negative characteristics (moral degeneracy, stupidity, irresponsibility,
dishonesty, untrustworthiness, unreliability) are attributed to members of the ―out‖ group.22
Dehumanization occurs when the enemy and the enemy‘s characteristics are associated
with nonhuman entities, such as animals, vermin, filth, and germs. Nazi propaganda in the
1930s compared the Jews and their negative characteristics to rats and cockroaches.23 Cult
members are constantly encouraged to use these labels when referring to the enemy. Once

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2005, Page 23
these labels are consistently applied to the enemy group, cult members are conditioned
over time to think of the enemy group members as nonhuman.
The dehumanization phase separates extremist hate groups and terrorist groups from non-
violent cults, which do not dehumanize out groups. This phase also separates terrorist
groups from the organized militaries of democracies. Although democratic militaries use
depluralization, both forms of deindividuation, and dehumanization, their conditioning
applies to armed combatants only. Democratic militaries have strict rules of engagement
that preclude killing innocent noncombatants.24,25 Terrorist groups have no such restrictions
therefore their dehumanization conditioning applies to all members of the enemy group,
regardless of their combat status.
Although dehumanization rationalizes the mass killing of innocents by terrorist group
members, an additional phase of conditioning helps prevent the occurrence of after-action
killing remorse. Demonization, the fifth phase of the social psychological conditioning
process, occurs when cult members become convinced that the enemy is in league with the
devil and cosmic evil. Since most cultures define ―good‖ in comparison to ―evil,‖
demonization is a widely available conditioning strategy. Referring to the United States as
the ―Great Satan‖ is an example of cultural demonization. Since most cultures also
exonerate those who fight against and eradicate evil, demonization is simply channeled and
intensified by terrorist groups. If a terrorist group member is truly convinced that enemy old
people, women, and children are evil creatures, then killing them is not just easy it is
necessary, honorable, and rewarded by those the member respects.
In summary, it is worth reiterating that the five phases of social psychological conditioning
are reinforced by obedience pressure,26 which would not exist without the presence of the
charismatic leader. In fact, studies of cults demonstrate that many cults cease to exist once
the original founder or leader has been somehow removed from the group.27 Furthermore,
additional powerful group dynamics reinforce the five-phase conditioning process. As a
cohort of joiners simultaneously undergoes the phases of the conditioning process, they
become a highly cohesive group. They endure the hardships of training and indoctrination
together, and this shared experience enhances the perception that the group is now all and
everything in each joiner‘s life. As the group cohesion grows, the level of conformity
pressure that each joiner imposes on the others increases.28 Increasing cohesion and
increasing conformity pressure, along with the leader‘s initial extreme position, help make
each joiner‘s views more extreme than they were initially.29
In nonviolent cults, the ultimate threat underlying both obedience and conformity pressure
is rejection from the group. No one who joins a group voluntarily wants to be rejected from
it. Cult joiners especially do not want to be rejected from the cult group. They have usually
sacrificed greatly (giving up family and friends, a career, personal wealth) to join the group,
which increases their dependence on the group and therefore makes the possibility of
rejection by the group even more psychologically devastating.30 In violent cults and terrorist
groups, there is an additional and greater fear present: The fear of being killed or of having
family members killed by the group is a strong possibility if joiners are too deviant or
seriously consider leaving the group. Both of these fears have the effect of increasing joiner
obedience and conformity.
In essence, each joiner confronts powerful social dynamics that make the conditioning
almost impossible to resist. First, the seductive power of the charismatic leader entices the
joiner into the cult and helps the joiner develop cult values while the conditioning takes
effect. Second, the growing conformity power of the increasingly cohesive group reinforces
the power of the leader. Then consider that many joiners are often culturally preconditioned
in favor of the leader‘s vision, that the conditioning frequently occurs in isolated
environments, that there is an underlying fear of the consequences of deviance, and the