{"id":537,"date":"2020-07-14T16:12:45","date_gmt":"2020-07-14T16:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cultedchild.com\/?p=537"},"modified":"2021-09-06T13:23:23","modified_gmt":"2021-09-06T13:23:23","slug":"jayanti-tamm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/?p=537","title":{"rendered":"Jayanti Tamm, Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B001SE75FK\/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jayanti Tamm, Contributor<\/a><\/strong> Huffpost<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author and professor, Jayanti Tamm is the author of Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult. She was a Princeton University Mid-Career Fellow.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What Is A Cult? Recognizing And Avoiding Unhealthy Groups <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

04\/14\/2011 01:27 pm ET Updated<\/strong> Jun 14, 2011<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/the-c-word_2_b_848340?guccounter=1<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who in our over-stimulated, media-saturated, hyper-connected world would ever go and knowingly join a cult? The answer is no one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one wakes up one morning and decides to join a cult. Even if someone did, good luck trying to look up the address for the nearest local cult, for there isn\u2019t a single group that would ever admit to or advertise as being a cult. And why would they? The word \u2018cult\u2019 is explosive, loaded with connotations of brainwashing, lunatics, and mass suicide \u2014 not exactly an ideal marketing strategy. For the most part, cults are keenly and obsessively aware of their public persona and consciously labor to maintain a positive image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scrolling through their websites, their mission statements are warmly fuzzy and vague; they promise redemption, renewal, rejuvenation, and reinvention. They offer answers, solutions, and happiness. It\u2019s all there, yours for the taking. What isn\u2019t included is the reality beneath the surface, the leader\u2019s demands for obedience from its members, the psychological pressure, the ability to subordinate all activities to the leader\u2019s will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But most people don\u2019t find and join cults through Internet searches. Most people stumble upon them accidentally. A flyer in the laundromat for a free meditation class. A listing in the newspaper for a community service project. A poster at the library for a musical performance. Recruitment is purposefully subtle; the pull is gentle, gradual. Events are welcoming; attention is lavished on the visitor with the intention to create an environment that feels inclusive, nonthreatening, and safe. The visitor is warmly encouraged to return, to step in closer. It is not until later, often much later, that one may look around and, with great surprise, discover the strange terrain upon which one now stands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cults, whether they are offshoots of Eastern or Western traditional religions, are surprisingly
similar in their methods and means. The tactics and techniques used to recruit, maintain, and
disown noncompliant members seem pulled from a universal handbook of do\u2019s and don\u2019ts.
With all of their rules and restrictions, laws and codes, ultimately cults are about grasping and preserving absolute and unconditional control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cults are fueled by and thrive on control. The willingness to surrender control comes from
excessive devotion to the leader and the leader\u2019s vision. The leader\u2019s personal agenda is
presented as a universal elixir, one that will eradicate both personal and global moral, ethical, and spiritual maladies. The follower\u2019s faith becomes both the provider and the enabler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faith in the mission, faith in the leader is an agent used to unify a disparate collection of strong individuals from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. The loss of the individual is the gain of the group. Individual achievements are discouraged, downplayed and finally eradicated while the group\u2019s achievements are encouraged, celebrated and memorialized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To maintain the unity and cohesion of the cult, there is a clear separation between those \u2018inside\u2019 and \u2018outside.\u2019 Members are holy, special, chosen; outsiders are unholy, ignorant, toxic. Contact with the outside world \u2014 often including family \u2014 is discouraged, and family is redefined as the group itself. In this new family, subjugation and subservience is expected and obedience and control is demanded. From one\u2019s sexuality to one\u2019s personal hygiene, the leader possesses unquestioned, absolute authority over its members\u2019 lives. For a cult leader, it is imperative to seem infallible, to possess the answers, the solutions, the only route to salvation. The leader is fierce in singular righteousness, in the design to hail oneself absolute. A narcissist with insatiable needs for power, control, and, very often fame, the leader seeks affirmation of supreme authority through alignment with public figures and celebrities, achieving large numbers of recruits, and amassing private fiefdoms.Bottom of Form<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the need to please the leader, to ascend the ranks, to work to fulfill the leader\u2019s vision, cults dictate followers\u2019 actions and thoughts. Obedient members receive exalted status and conformity is enforced through notions of guilt, shame, and failure by both the leader and other members. A system of reporting on members for transgressions creates both an internal police force and opportunities for promotion and rewards for turning in brother and sister members. Those who violate the rules are punished and eventually, to maintain the coherent group unity, expelled. After time, the group assumes all roles \u2014 family, friends, church, home, work, community, and departing, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, after years or even decades, without having a concrete safety net is challenging, and sometimes utterly impossible. The world on the other side appears frightening and overwhelming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just who is so easily swept up in the group-think and loss of individuality that are hallmarks of cults? A misconception is that there is a certain \u2018type\u2019 \u2014 usually imbalanced, weak \u2014 that not only finds themselves caught inside a cult but that isn\u2019t able to extract themselves from it. The truth is, there isn\u2019t one typical profile, \u2018type.\u2019 People with advanced degrees and people without any formal education are both equally likely to find themselves swaddled in orange robes or holed up in a compound. The urge to be a part of something is elemental, raw, and natural. To have a defined goal, a purpose, offers meaning. Most people strive for acceptance within social groups and long for affirmation from others. Be it in an office or country club, adjustments are made to conform, to gain approval and to advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In cults, extremism is the norm. When hyper devotion is expected behavior, for acceptance new recruits tend to rapidly thrust themselves into the prescribed lifestyle much to the chagrin of their family and friends on the \u2018outside.\u2019 There is no blame, no fault for having the audacity to plunge into belief, into faith so deeply, so forcefully that critical and analytical red flags, even if they once appeared, are snapped off. Belief and faith are such intoxicants that logical reason and facts become blurry and nonsensical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the boundary between cults and religion often feels confusing \u2014 the Oxford English Dictionary\u2019s definitions differ only slightly with cults being \u201csmall\u201d in size and possessing \u201cbeliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.\u201d Deciding what is strange or sinister certainly depends on the beholder. When accusations of being in a cult appear, members quickly and vehemently deny they are in a cult \u2014 they are part of a \u2018spiritual path,\u2019 a \u2018special church,\u2019 a \u2018progressive movement\u2019 \u2014 other groups are cults, but not theirs. No way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps it is more useful to discern what a religious movement is or what a cult is by comparing its impact upon members\u2019 lives: does it compliment or control? At their best, healthy religions and organizations compliment rich, full lives by offering balance, community, comfort. At their worst, they lapse into vehicles demanding control. Cults limit lives into narrow, claustrophobic existences whose singular purpose is the cult itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cult leaders, experts in psychological manipulation, prey on both the follower\u2019s ability to believe and need to belong. But this type of behavior is hardly limited to cults. After all, the aptitude and capacity to exploit human beings is universal, and, with the right ambitious and charismatic leader, any group easily could morph into a cult. What prevents that from occurring is that most established religions and groups have accountability mechanisms that restrain that from happening; cults, however, are purposefully designed so that the only restraints are the ones placed upon the people who, without even realizing it, have just done what they never thought they would do \u2014 join a cult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it a Cult? The Top Ten Signs the \u2018Group\u2019 You\u2019ve Joined is Not what It Seems<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. The leader and group are always correct and anything the leader does can be justified.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    \u00b7  Questions, suggestions, or critical inquiry are forbidden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u00b7  Members incessantly scramble with cramped schedules and activities full of largely meaningless work based on the leader\u2019s agenda<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u00b7  Followers are meant to believe that they are never good enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u00b7  Required dependency upon the leader and group for even the most basic problem-solving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u00b7  Reporting on members for disobedient actions or thoughts is mandated and rewarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u00b7  Monetary, sexual, or servile labor is expected to gain promotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u00b7  The \u2018outside\u2019 world \u2014 often including family and friends \u2014 is presented as rife with impending catastrophe, evil, and temptations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u00b7  Recruitment of new members is designed to be purposefully upbeat and vague about the actual operations of the leader and group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u00b7  Former members are shunned and perceived as hostile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Jayanti Tamm is the author of Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult (Three Rivers Press). She is a Visiting Professor in the MFA Program at Queens College, CUNY.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Jayanti Tamm, Contributor Huffpost Author and professor, Jayanti Tamm is the author of Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult. She was a Princeton University Mid-Career Fellow. What Is A Cult? Recognizing And Avoiding Unhealthy Groups 04\/14\/2011 01:27 pm ET Updated Jun 14, 2011 https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/the-c-word_2_b_848340?guccounter=1 Who in our over-stimulated, media-saturated, hyper-connected world would ever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[76],"tags":[40,50,51],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cultedchild.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}