Cult. how sects are created and how they lure people in

Warren Jeffs, the leader of a polygamous sect, claimed to have inherited the ability to communicate with God. According to him, this gave him the right to assign multiple wives to his followers for life. In 2011, Warren Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years for two cases of raping minors. He gained international attention in May 2006 when he appeared on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for attempting to evade justice, which accused him of organizing marriages to minors.

João de Deus, the leader of a Brazilian sect, gathered thousands of followers around him, claiming that God had endowed him with the power to heal AIDS and cancer. However, later the court convicted him of six hundred cases of sexual abuse. But without a doubt, your miracles will be met more warmly. When Jim Jones decided to gather a congregation, he knew an effective way to lure people in. Spiritual awakening meetings were held in the remote state of Indiana – what kind of performances they organized! One of the important elements was healing. Faith healing is an important Christian tradition that has existed for centuries. Faith healing has no scientific basis; skeptics believe that people heal due to positive thinking. But if a person believed that the pastor was a prophet sent by God, they would want to believe in miracles as well.

From the moment he founded his first church, Jones began claiming that he could feel human pain, and soon he added full-fledged healing to his repertoire. And the most incredible thing – sometimes he really succeeded. Did he have the gift of healing? Jones claimed that he himself didn’t know. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. So, as his congregation grew, he resorted more and more to staging these healings. Soon, Jones began diagnosing people with cancer, which they hadn’t suspected, wanting to show that he could cure all ailments. They would cough up “growths” through their lungs – this was their favorite trick, which they performed very dramatically. People faking cancer were ardent followers of Jones. Usually, chicken entrails were used, which they allegedly coughed up into a handkerchief. Assistants made sure that the audience observed from a distance, but if anyone rushed forward to pick up the “coughed-up” tissue, the assistants had to shove the entrails into their mouths and swallow them.

Although the healings were fake, they became Jones’s hallmark. He managed to impress even skeptics, and thanks to good staging, his congregation continued to grow. Jones combined artistry with deception and then added God to this mix. This combination made people follow him anywhere. So, your healings became a sensation – bravo! However, not everyone is interested in such healings, and you still need to expand your audience. In this guide, you will find a solution to this problem. Dare to succeed!

LESSON 8. MAKE A PRESENTATION

As an emerging leader, you need to convey your ideas to all segments of society, and in this, Jim Jones was unmatched. He was a master manipulator – people in his service felt like he was addressing them personally, making them feel important. He was incredibly charismatic and could connect with any audience. Jones’s secret was a time-tested technique called “code-switching.” Code-switching involves shifting from one language or dialect to another within the same conversation or even the same sentence.

As his fame grew, Jones traveled across America and tailored his delivery for each performance to connect with the local audience. He first settled in Indianapolis, where his primary audience was elderly African American women. To them, he preached in the style of a Pentecostal pastor. When the church moved to Redwood Valley, California, where the predominant audience was white conservatives, he became a proponent of family values. And when college students began attending services, his sermons included quotes from Nietzsche and Mao. Increasingly, he spoke of the concept of karma and flirted with Eastern teachings that were popular at the time.

When Jones moved the church to its final location in downtown San Francisco, he tuned into the mood of the audience and began speaking about radical social revolution. But whenever the audience started to lose interest, Jones would switch to a topic that would never bore them: the topic of impending death. It’s one thing to motivate people to join a cult; it’s another to ensure they stay. The next lesson in the manual will show how to maintain the faith of a growing congregation.

LESSON 9. MAKE THEM CONTRIBUTE

No matter what they say about cults, they unite people. A person enjoys connecting with other members of the human race. They like to sing and dance, as well as do things that might seem cultish. And nothing unites people more than the forced communal living of unfamiliar adults. All true cult leaders know this. Shoko Asahara brought his followers together by housing them in a communal living space teeming with parasites because, according to his teachings, no living creature should be killed. Followers of the Indian guru Bhagwan Rajneesh actively participated in the construction of the autonomous settlement “Rajneeshpuram” near Antelope, Oregon, in the 1980s, where they could safely practice their faith, engage in free love, and participate in naked therapy. Members of the “Buddhafield” cult spent all their free time and money serving their guru, Jaime Gomez. They even built a ballet theater for him.

Jones had his own clever and profitable solution for uniting followers around a common goal – he called it “apostolic socialism.” The twelve apostles of Jesus Christ lived in one place and in a commune. Therefore, he decided that his flock should also live in a commune, and to cover the expenses of such a lifestyle, he instructed his followers to give all their worldly possessions to the church. He could easily convince people to sell whatever property they owned and give all the money to the church. And if anyone was not convinced enough, he instilled a sense of guilt, claiming that he had made many sacrifices in his life to help people. He would say that he could have become a rich man, and thus, if he asked something, it should be done.

Jones used the money of his followers and their unpaid labor to reach a wider audience. One could serve soup in the cafeteria, deliver food to those in need, or read to elderly people in a retirement home near the temple. They could also fix cars in the auto shop, spend weekends writing laudatory letters to Jones from government officials, write or edit articles for the cult’s newsletter, as well as print and distribute newspapers door-to-door. The endless possibilities matched the endless hours of work. This wasn’t just church work on Sundays – people were immersed in it wholeheartedly, and it became the meaning of their lives. This is how he made people feel involved, while also gaining complete control over their lives. Even if you’ve created a successful commune at home, there’s still a whole world that doesn’t even realize what you can offer it. It’s time to dive into this more seriously.