What should I do if a friend or family member joins a cult?

This is probably one of the most important questions regarding cults that people have. The answer is that people who are successful at maintaining relationships with people in cults and successful at helping people to leave cults almost always don't do certain things and do do other things.

It is counterintuitive but many decades of experience have shown that these actions almost always have these results.

Telling someone they are brainwashed, fooled, being stupid, making a bad decision, acting irrationally, or that they are in a cult ALMOST ALWAYS fails. That is the first principle regarding cults. It has been proven thousands of times. If someone is genuinely fooled by a cult and in a cultic relationship the relationship has a component that involves defending the cult and the decision to be involved.

The defense of a cult is so strong that most of the time any criticism of the cult or the cult member for being in the cult is a one way ticket to the cult member cutting ties with any critic of the cult. That rule has been proven over and over by thousands and thousands of people.

If you have a family member, partner, spouse, parent, child, co-worker, or friend who you want to be able to communicate with in the future and you think that they are in a cult the first thing that you should know is that criticism of their decision or the cult itself will destroy the relationship. It may only take one remark as cults get people to see the world as pure good, the cult, versus pure evil, anyone outside the cult especially any critics of the cult.

This sadly is true no matter how close you were to a cult member before they were recruited by the cult. So, your best friend, spouse, child that was extremely close to you before and may have listened to and valued anything you had to say may now be of an entirely different disposition regarding anything that criticizes the cult.

The cult erodes and devalues all other relationships. So, you have the job of not antagonizing the cult member but instead of letting them know you care and are there. You need to, if possible, let them know you are going to be there for them in the future regardless of what anyone else does.

You can be honest and tell them that whatever choice they make is theirs to make and that won't change your relationship. Don't come across as patronizing or condescending. It has to be as safe as possible to change their mind or they may never leave the cult because it would be a humiliating admission on their part if you have positioned being in the cult as stupid, crazy, a bad decision, etc.

So, if possible don't act like joining a cult is bad, stupid, crazy, etc. and don't act like you know better or are too smart.

The best thing you can do is to protect your relationship and give the person what Alexandra Stein in her book Terror, Love and Brainwashing calls an escape hatch relationship, one a cult member can SAFELY turn to, without fear of rejection, judgement, condemnation or humiliation or criticism.

The number one thing to do is to hang onto your best asset in this situation - the relationship you already have.

The next thing to do is to become educated regarding cults. There are numerous cult experts with good books, articles and YouTube videos available today.

Probably the two top experts whose work I turn to are Robert Jay Lifton and the late Margaret Singer. They both have studied cults and high control groups for decades.

Lifton has written many books. The heart of his work regarding cults involves the eight criteria for thought reform and every serious student regarding cults should know them cold.

His latest book Losing Reality is very short and sums up decades of work.

Singer wrote Cults In Our Midst and it is definitely one of the best books ever written on cults in my opinion.

I highly recommend the YouTube videos of Singer answering questions regarding cults and the series of interviews Bill Moyers has done of Lifton regarding cults. They are all available online free.

The best first book regarding cults in my opinion is Freedom of Mind by Steve Hassan. It is written in a very accessible but thorough style.

It really can be hard to take on the subject and Hassan gives the information that you need and it doesn't require any other education to understand his book. It can be understood by just about anyone who has a high school education.

The top expert on Scientology is Jon Atack and I recommend all his articles and books for anyone dealing with the subject. It is simply the best way to get the best information available in my opinion.

I also can recommend two books for the relationships between cult members and the leaders. They both provide crucial insights that no one else does.

Traumatic Narcissism by Daniel Shaw and Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein really dog into what makes a cult leader a cult leader and what the relationship between the leader and followers is like, they are indispensable in my opinion.

The best book to give a comprehensive look at the research regarding cults is Cults Inside Out by Rick Alan Ross. It is a beautiful book and covers all the bases. Additionally, it describes so much of the research and names works and authors so well, it can be the basis of an entire curriculum on cults.