5 VOLUME 7 |ISSUE 2 |2016
“Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”
Attributed to Groucho Marx, this quote succinctly and
entertainingly articulates a recovery issue many former
members of high-control, cultic groups confront: the question
of authority.
Most of what we believe rests on faith in what other people
say or in what we read. The evening news proclaims that an
earthquake has damaged Jerusalem. I’m not in Jerusalem.
I haven’t seen or felt the earthquake. But I believe that the
earthquake has rocked that city because I attribute authority to
(i.e., believe) the evening news broadcast.
If, however, I were standing in the middle of Jerusalem and
could see no sign of an earthquake, I’d have a conflict. The US
evening news that I access on the Web says an earthquake
struck the place where I am standing, but my eyes tell me
differently. I see people all around me living life normally,
honking the horns on their cars, riding bicycles, looking in shop
windows. “The media report must be mistaken,” I think. I believe
my eyes, not somebody to whom I normally would attribute a
high level of authority, of trustworthiness.
In many forms of cult conversion, one of the most fundamental
changes is a change in authority. For example,
I used to believe the evening news, but cult leader X,
who I believe has a special pipeline to God, tells me that
journalists are a conspiratorial cabal that manufactures
false news all the time. He says that Jerusalem is holy
ground and could not be struck by an earthquake.
Therefore, the journalists are lying. I feel some doubt
as I watch the news in my living room in the United
States of America, but I want to stay in my leader’s good
graces, so I believe him, even if I have to will that belief
a bit.
My conflict becomes more acute when my friend,
who happens to be in Jerusalem, sends pictures of
the devastation to my phone. Then he calls me and
describes the destruction to me. Even if I no longer
trust the evening news, I trust my friend. I fearfully tell
my leader about my friend’s photos and report. Big
mistake! The full force of my leader’s anger reduces me
to a shaking, cowering child. Even my good friend in
Jerusalem is evil. I have an intense mixture of conflicting
emotions. But my desire to please my leader and avoid
his wrath wins out. I push aside questions and doubts,
fanatically focusing on the thought-stopping chant my
leader taught me. I must believe him, not my lying eyes.
Though my example is admittedly extreme, the principal it
illustrates sheds light on the often-asked question, “How can
intelligent people believe that rubbish?!” They can believe
because the leaders and members of cultic groups know
how to denigrate a person’s current authorities (i.e., those
whose statements the person trusts) and transfer that trust to
themselves. Furthermore, cultic groups know how to reinforce
this change in authority through the clever and careful use
of psychological manipulation—through guilt, intimidation,
ridicule, isolation, threat, and so on.
When persons who have been under a cult’s influence for a
long time leave their group (for whatever reason), they do not
automatically return to being the person they were before the
cult. They inevitably take a part of the cult with them. That is
why people in this field will say things such as “He is physically
out of the group, but not mentally.”
Some of the cult residue relates to sources of authority.
Although former members may have rejected the group's
authority, they may still give authority to information sources
favored by the group (e.g., a natural-healing website). In other
words, former cult members may retain some of the delusions,
illusions, and misconceptions of their group’s members and
leaders, sometimes even for many years after they have left.
Moreover, the tendency toward magical thinking, which is
common in cultic groups, may incline former members to seek
out other sources of magical thinking. So even though they are
out of the cult, these former members are still in the mental box
of their group. It is not surprising, then, that former members of
cultic groups may be prone to cognitive errors.
Some of the most harmful of these mistakes cluster around
medicine, family, psychotherapy, and religion:
• A leader and other members of a group insisted
incessantly that modern medicine is a sham and that
only ancient medical teachings are trustworthy. If you
accepted that belief as a corollary of the belief in the
leader’s divine authority, you may continue to hold the
belief even years after you have left the group because
you still see ancient medicine as an authority.
• The group drilled into your mind the false belief that your
family hates you. So even after leaving the group, you
avoid your family. You continue to attribute credibility
to that belief because you do not realize the degree to
which the group leader, whom you may now hate, is still
your authority concerning beliefs about family.
• If during your years in a group the leader and everybody
around you lived as though only prayer could solve
personal problems, and they portrayed psychotherapy
and psychiatry as agents of the devil, mental-health
professionals would have little authority in your eyes. If
this attitude toward the mental-health profession sticks
with you after you leave, you may experience much
avoidable psychological pain.
• If you spent many years in a Bible-based group that
attributed authority only to the King James Version of the
Bible, you may find it difficult when you leave to question
this authority and the hermeneutics favored by the
group. You may, for example, find yourself struggling with
spiritual and theological questions that you could more
effectively address if you attributed authority to other
religious sources.
These examples illustrate why it may be important for former
members to actively and vigorously question the residue of
“Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”
Attributed to Groucho Marx, this quote succinctly and
entertainingly articulates a recovery issue many former
members of high-control, cultic groups confront: the question
of authority.
Most of what we believe rests on faith in what other people
say or in what we read. The evening news proclaims that an
earthquake has damaged Jerusalem. I’m not in Jerusalem.
I haven’t seen or felt the earthquake. But I believe that the
earthquake has rocked that city because I attribute authority to
(i.e., believe) the evening news broadcast.
If, however, I were standing in the middle of Jerusalem and
could see no sign of an earthquake, I’d have a conflict. The US
evening news that I access on the Web says an earthquake
struck the place where I am standing, but my eyes tell me
differently. I see people all around me living life normally,
honking the horns on their cars, riding bicycles, looking in shop
windows. “The media report must be mistaken,” I think. I believe
my eyes, not somebody to whom I normally would attribute a
high level of authority, of trustworthiness.
In many forms of cult conversion, one of the most fundamental
changes is a change in authority. For example,
I used to believe the evening news, but cult leader X,
who I believe has a special pipeline to God, tells me that
journalists are a conspiratorial cabal that manufactures
false news all the time. He says that Jerusalem is holy
ground and could not be struck by an earthquake.
Therefore, the journalists are lying. I feel some doubt
as I watch the news in my living room in the United
States of America, but I want to stay in my leader’s good
graces, so I believe him, even if I have to will that belief
a bit.
My conflict becomes more acute when my friend,
who happens to be in Jerusalem, sends pictures of
the devastation to my phone. Then he calls me and
describes the destruction to me. Even if I no longer
trust the evening news, I trust my friend. I fearfully tell
my leader about my friend’s photos and report. Big
mistake! The full force of my leader’s anger reduces me
to a shaking, cowering child. Even my good friend in
Jerusalem is evil. I have an intense mixture of conflicting
emotions. But my desire to please my leader and avoid
his wrath wins out. I push aside questions and doubts,
fanatically focusing on the thought-stopping chant my
leader taught me. I must believe him, not my lying eyes.
Though my example is admittedly extreme, the principal it
illustrates sheds light on the often-asked question, “How can
intelligent people believe that rubbish?!” They can believe
because the leaders and members of cultic groups know
how to denigrate a person’s current authorities (i.e., those
whose statements the person trusts) and transfer that trust to
themselves. Furthermore, cultic groups know how to reinforce
this change in authority through the clever and careful use
of psychological manipulation—through guilt, intimidation,
ridicule, isolation, threat, and so on.
When persons who have been under a cult’s influence for a
long time leave their group (for whatever reason), they do not
automatically return to being the person they were before the
cult. They inevitably take a part of the cult with them. That is
why people in this field will say things such as “He is physically
out of the group, but not mentally.”
Some of the cult residue relates to sources of authority.
Although former members may have rejected the group's
authority, they may still give authority to information sources
favored by the group (e.g., a natural-healing website). In other
words, former cult members may retain some of the delusions,
illusions, and misconceptions of their group’s members and
leaders, sometimes even for many years after they have left.
Moreover, the tendency toward magical thinking, which is
common in cultic groups, may incline former members to seek
out other sources of magical thinking. So even though they are
out of the cult, these former members are still in the mental box
of their group. It is not surprising, then, that former members of
cultic groups may be prone to cognitive errors.
Some of the most harmful of these mistakes cluster around
medicine, family, psychotherapy, and religion:
• A leader and other members of a group insisted
incessantly that modern medicine is a sham and that
only ancient medical teachings are trustworthy. If you
accepted that belief as a corollary of the belief in the
leader’s divine authority, you may continue to hold the
belief even years after you have left the group because
you still see ancient medicine as an authority.
• The group drilled into your mind the false belief that your
family hates you. So even after leaving the group, you
avoid your family. You continue to attribute credibility
to that belief because you do not realize the degree to
which the group leader, whom you may now hate, is still
your authority concerning beliefs about family.
• If during your years in a group the leader and everybody
around you lived as though only prayer could solve
personal problems, and they portrayed psychotherapy
and psychiatry as agents of the devil, mental-health
professionals would have little authority in your eyes. If
this attitude toward the mental-health profession sticks
with you after you leave, you may experience much
avoidable psychological pain.
• If you spent many years in a Bible-based group that
attributed authority only to the King James Version of the
Bible, you may find it difficult when you leave to question
this authority and the hermeneutics favored by the
group. You may, for example, find yourself struggling with
spiritual and theological questions that you could more
effectively address if you attributed authority to other
religious sources.
These examples illustrate why it may be important for former
members to actively and vigorously question the residue of
