One estimate suggests that at any given time, there are around 500,000 people who are members of a cult. They are often drawn to these groups because their leaders seek them out in a vulnerable state and use manipulative tactics to lure them in. How exactly this works is known only to those who have had firsthand experience with it, of which many are shared online.

Like under this popular thread, where folks were telling stories about the people they know who have fallen victim to cults. For those who are curious, we compiled their top answers below. To find them, all you have to do is scroll down.

#1

Me.

I was born into Jehovah’s Witnesses and lost everything when my lifetime of doubts were proved rational and I got out. Wife, kids, dog, job, and home all in nine months.

My living situation is improved (it’s been seven years) but that’s still seven years without the above. Two of my kids talk to me, but they live 900 miles away and the distance has killed my mental health. I long to die of natural causes. I’m only 51.

I’ll be six years sober on the 14th, if I make it that far. Six more days….

EDIT: my mom abandoned me too, by certified mail with highlighted scriptural notes and in her immaculate handwriting the week I moved out.

She wanted to reconcile before she died of ovarian cancer. You don’t think I want to see her again, only in spirit?

#2

Me. i did. it was a new age yoga cult and me and my friends used to jokingly call it a cult because we weren’t aware of how much bad stuff was happening.

short version is i grew up in it, it was a big part of my life until i was 17, i left for a while, came back in my late 20’s and less than a year later the people closest to the leader came out and exposed his a***e and corruption which started a tidal wave of people speaking out.

#3

Yes, I had a friend/coworker get sucked into Scientology. He started going to all these classes, of course met a girl who sucked him in deeper and he stopped showing up for work so he got fired. Then he just disappeared from the city.

#4

Me too. I left Berlin and have multiple mental illness es / diagnoses. I was told of this amazing farm for women with trauma experiences. This place was supposed to have everything: therapy, yoga, llamas, horses: that I would be able to do an Ausbildung and become my own independent person.

I was told that by the pick up (which was 2 hours away from the farm) that my SIM card had to be destroyed.i also wouldnt be allowed to speak with friends or family for a year.

I got there. There was nothing that was promised. The other women had multiple personality disorders, which I didn’t know about (but that was mainly due to miscommunication.)

There was no therapy / just lots of manual work. Most of the girls couldn’t do anything though because they were so ill.
You weren’t allowed to clap, no men, no face masks even if people had corona.

They had personal shortage, with 6 “severely ill” women even though this “therapeutic facility” was getting the highest amount financial support from the Eingliederungshilfe. The place was completely run down, dirty and bare. I believe the main woman who ran it that had spoken to me was keeping the money for herself

The whole 4 months I was there, no one would help me file for Bürgergeld due to too many crisis / personal shortage / etc. So I had NO money!

The facility did pay / buy for food, but that was it.

One girl slit her throat, while I was there. Every day and night there was crises and I often had to “jump in” to help the women.

From the first two weeks I said that I didn’t want to be there anymore. That this isn’t what I was told about and promised.

I would be reminded that I am deeply mentally ill and that I have no where else to go.

I was told that my Eingliederungshilfe wouldn’t pay for my support anymore anywhere else and that I would be homeless.

I was there only four months and managed to get out due to saying I was going to end my life / and was put in the hospital where I got help from a social worker to go back to Berlin.

Berlin hasn’t been easy since then either, but I’m trying really hard.

I really want a more normal life now and really struggle with fears. I’ve been very very isolated and some bad things happened when I first moved back to Berlin.

I am kind of using Reddit to rant. I can’t really talk about this to many people.

Best wishes and thanks if anyone read this!

#5

My friend in highschool fell in love with a Jehovah Witness guy. Suddenly we couldn’t be friends because I was a sinner for being bisexual. She spent every hour of the day reading about her new religion and telling everyone else that they were going to hell. She tried to convert, but apparently you can fail somehow? She then found out she was pregnant with his child, but when he found out he moved to another province. She stole her parents car to chase him, but was obviously caught and returned home. She had her baby while still in highschool. I found out she killed herself several years later.

edit: I don’t remember her actually saying hell, just that we wouldn’t get to live peacefully with everyone who believes. See my more detailed response in the response to a comment below.

#6

Does Lyndon LaRouche stuff count?

Anyway, I was asked by a friend who was into that to make pasta for the whole… idk, cell? political committee? whatever they call it.

So I did that. The problem is that they have something like struggle sessions, during which they put someone in a circle and more or less yell at them.

They did that to my friend and there I was with a metal ladle and a large metal pot. Turns out an Italian with cookware is louder than twenty Americans without.

I took her home and her mom convinced her to stay away.

So that was nice.

#7

I was born into a fundamentalist Christian cult. I lost my entire family getting out. It took years to get the church to stop harassing me about coming back. I still worry that someone will come by my house. I have a door camera, so I wouldn’t answer.

It has taken me tremendous effort to build myself from that. I had to learn about boundaries, social skills, and life skills. Plus I have learned to live my adult life with very minimal support.

I married a guy who reinforced the same culty c**p. Not so much the religion, but the a***e and control. I’m divorcing him.

I’m getting better, but it’s a long lonely journey.

#8

Not me but I went to school with 2 boys whose aunt and uncle were in The People’s temple in Jonestown Guyana in 1978. The aunt was killed on the tarmac as they were trying to leave. The uncle, 2 cousins, grandma, and a boyfriend of one of the cousins escaped into the jungle. We were in the 8th grade. The woman that was killed, her name was Patty Parks. She is buried in our hometown. Springfield, Ohio.

#9

I was in a group therapy cult run by an extended family member related to Richard Gere. So was a friend and a friend of a friend in the same group, but my friend quit before I joined. The therapist was elderly, wore a jacket and had a goatee, and glasses, had a fancy name and an office in a central location. It was therapy, group therapy, talking about your feeling, being honest, getting life lessons, and learning about relationships and emotions.

The guy was a con artist and disordered person himself who did a great job hiding it. Instead of an actual legitimate therapy, he passed off his own disordered ways as the therapy.

For example, due to being a short unattractive guy, but having a big ego, he said he tried asking out one of the hot ‘Swedish blondes’ in college. They rejected him. Instead of accepting that he was climbing up the wrong tree and shooting way out of his league, he concluded that the girl won’t date him because she is not Italian.

The group therapy life lesson he gave us that session was ‘Italians date Italians, and Jews date Jews. That Chinese girl at work is perfect for you because you are both Chinese.’

Patients in his group idolized him and nobody contradicted or challenged him because he would get mad. People got used to thinking that everything he said was right or would just let it go.

One day, he encouraged someone to talk freely, then turned to them in an impulsive and unprofessional way and snapped at them, ‘Oh, X, don’t be snarky!’ with disdain.

It struck as inappropriate and unprofessional so I left without doing the encouraged 8 week warning and mandatory good bye session.

Over the 3 years, he instructed us to do a series of bizarre socially harmful stuff to each other, to accept it from him, and to do it to others.

He told one guy in the group to tell his dying grandma with dementia that quote, ‘She is scary and unpleasant’, – which directly violates MA State Mandated Dementia Training and constitutes elder emotional a***e.

But he tied it to group therapy principles of being open and honest which he insisted would make the world a better place if everyone did it.

Coincidentally he called his group the ‘perfect place’ to work on things, but then also called his patients ‘Pathetic’ and ‘Adult Day Care clients with nothing better going in their lives.’

He told use there was a girl with some serious mental disorders who quit his group ‘without doing the work or being ready.’ He looked down at her for being misguided and a quitter. A person in his group told us that this girl was going around and speaking at churches about her experience in life and in his group and how his group was a*****e and harmful to her. We thought it wasn’t a big deal at the time, but now I see that he guided his patients toward social-emotional destruction of self and their support network by copying his harmful behaviors and doing what he taught like it is a healthy thing to do when it is not.

If you read the guidelines and learn to run an Attack Confrontation Group (which he covertly did), it is very easy to run a cult. You get all the key phrases such as love bombing and validating your clients, overcoming objections and resistance, bonding them, promising them things, etc.

#10

My mom got sucked into Landmark Education. It’s an offshoot of Scientology. Same brainwashing techniques, weekend retreats, classes, etc but without any religious aspect or super sci-fi crazy s**t you hear from Scientology. She’s convinced it’s strengthened our relationship but what actually strengthened our relationship was her taking steps back from it.

#11

I have relatives who fell into The Way International.

In the 1990s, I was subjected to a couple “Sunday teaching services” tapes. One tape suggested any homosexual who would appear on the cult compound grounds would be chained and dragged behind a truck down a gravel road.

I asked that relative never to bring that religion or belief system up around me again.

I now speak to those relatives only when it’s impolite not to.

#12

I was dating a guy when COVID hit. The first two weeks he was all alone in his apartment with nothing but the internet to occupy him and went from a weird but generally harmless Bernie Bro crunchy granola “Maybe Atlantis was aliens???” guy to full Q-Anon cult guy. In less than a month he went from agreeing that Trump was an idiot ruining our country to being pretty sure Trump is a hero leading the charge against the deep state pedos eating children. It was wild. We broke up.

#13

I dated a guy back in high school and whenever I would go to his house, the energy was always very very heavy. My friends and family members would come over and comment on it without me ever having said a word about it, so I knew I wasn’t crazy for it. My father and I are very intuitive and would have many conversations about how we think SA is happening but I never witnessed it. That is, until we broke up and I removed myself from the situation, and realized that SA is not blatant.

First and foremost, my ex was OBSESSED with his sister in a controlling, almost boyfriend-like way. At the time I understood because she was 14, sleeping around, and didn’t have a father figure in her life. I thought he was being a big brother until I later found out that when I left his house, he was SA’ing her. They were part of a church that always seemed to carry this same heavy, scary energy. The pastor seemed to be the sweetest, most gentle man, but he gave me weird vibes that I couldn’t articulate at the time. He would take battered, broken women in and “make” them call each other sisters. They’d be forced to sleep with each other and have drunken/d**g fueled orgies. All their kids had been SA’d and were SA’ing each other (my ex and his siblings). My ex’s mom was obsessed with the pastor, whom she called dad, and would constantly talk about how she owed him something and that a woman’s “job” is to make sure a man is pleased. The pastor’s wife had cancer and during treatment, my ex’s mom played wifey. The pastor would pick her up, drive somewhere, and she would come back with a dark cloud over she. She went “missing” for days and after coaxing it out of her, she was “trapped” in the basement of this church. She cried about how she pissed off the pastor and somehow got trapped, but couldn’t remember how.

She was also SA’ing her kids. I can remember times where my ex would want me to be as f*****g loud as possible so that everyone knew we were having s*x. We would fight if I wasn’t loud enough. He made me perform oral while his mom was laying in bed with us and she would giggle “while sleeping” and start rubbing herself “while sleeping.” She asked me how big he was, if he made sure I finished, gave me s*x advice.. all kinds of weird s**t.

So.. that being said. I believe they were involved in some weird s*x cult and I narrowly escaped. I’m a people pleaser through and through but d**n it if my dad didn’t teach me about listening to my intuition and not giving into overly religious b******t.

*editing to add because I somehow forgot about this- that guy later became a youth pastor and has preached about our relationship when discussing “the one.” I’ve had hundreds of people tell me this. HE. IS. MARRIED.

#14

A university friend joined a culty Christian church, married a man she met there, and had two kids. Then he killed her because she was going to leave him.

We are still friends with the kids (one of them just had her second child). The husband served several years in jail in Mexico (which is where he killed our friend) and from what I hear, is now living in Germany and practicing as a chiropractor (he was one before he killed our friend).

#15

I have more than two family members that have fallen to the MAGA cult, but the two that always come to mind are my uncle and cousin. All my life, up until a few years ago, they were the friendliest people I knew; life of the party types that were always joking around. I never heard either of them once say anything negative about others. However, the poison of rightwing media has completely changed their personalities. Both have become people that can’t even have a basic conversation about any topic, like the weather, without foaming in anger. It is really sad to see someone go from lighting up a room to raging about inconsequential things and lusting to hurt others.

#16

Myself. I don’t think people realize how cultish Mormons are.

Starting from a very young age, as a female we are immediately taught how we will obey our husbands and they know what’s best for us. Once we hit 14, they start teaching us how to be mothers and wives (teaching us how to cook, clean, dress. ) while the boys get to go camping and have fun. I was told that I had to “give it” to my husband whenever he wanted because we keep our husbands happy. And we provide as many children as we can. Polygamy is frowned upon so any of those are myths.

Women in the Mormon religion are under such strict rules, while the men don’t really get any punishment for anything. Example: if a woman in the Mormon church gets s****************d by a man from that church, it is the woman’s fault for opening her legs. And she will be shunned. The man just gets a slap on the wrist and it’s swept under the rug.

I no longer am Mormon. In fact it has ruined all religions for me except for spirituality. I’m just here. I believe there’s a higher being. And I will still continue to have good morals. But I will not worry about what happens when I die until I get there.

#17

There was a family that went to the same public schools I did consisting of *six* girls and one boy, all quite close in age. They were all pretty attractive and notorious. My best friend ended up dating and then marrying one in college. That’s when I found out that their parents birthed them all into some insane cult, but once they were all born they escaped somehow. The older children were never the same though. As my friend sadly found out, the emotional and psychological damage was too much and they ended up divorcing. She subsequently became a complete shut-in and disappeared.

He never told me specifically what went on in the cult, but I guess a central tenet was to produce as many babies as possible. And I’m assuming that the moment any girl was old enough to bear children the cult would make sure that played out. It was pretty sick.

#18

They helped elect trump.

#19

I know three people who went deep into the Qanon cult.

All three of them died in the last few years.

#20

“I’ve been a member of many cults. You have a lot of fun as a follower, but you make more money as a leader”.

#21

We call ourselves veterans, and the biggest cult members in our group are Marines.

#22

Yes, it was pretty sad. Began with some family alienation, and dude was rudderless for a few years, feeling lonely – and that’s when cults appeal the most. Hey! We’ll give you some love, some acceptance, some instant friends, some connection, some community, some sense of being needed!! What’s not to love!!

and pretty quickly after that, getting them out is like pulling a tick from between a hound dog’s toes. Not pretty! Very noisy! Lots of fighting! Limited success!

#23

Yes, my entire family is maga. And you magas reading on here can downvote all you want and be upset at what you’re reading, but you all have lost your minds. No one should gravitate toward political figures the way you all do. It is unhinged and it 100% mimics the same s**t that happened when Hitler came into power. Scoff all you want, but you people are on the wrong side of history. You will learn eventually, whether you like to admit it or not.

#24

My father in law bought into Q-Anon so wholeheartedly that we eventually had to stop talking to him.

#25

My uncle is in the same cult as the Duggar family, and is very high up in it as well.

He and his wife fell into it in 2006 ish. They are both surgeons (one plastic, the other orthopedic) so they had plenty of money to throw at it every year. Because of their money they were tasked with hosting conventions, accommodating cult celebrities, and providing money to places like the creation museum. (Which they helped finance their Noah’s Ark expansion a couple years ago, and are partial owners.)

Growing up I was often dragged to these conventions, or to these parties where the extremely conservative celebrities were. I’ve had many dinners with Ken Ham, met Jim Bob and Michelle Dugger several times, and my uncle is best friends with Kirk Cameron. He often visits him. I can say none of those people are good people, and the cult has definitely lost it presence within the past 10 years.

My aunt is slowly pulling out of it to the point that she hardly stays home with my uncle, and his children don’t really speak with him because of the way they grew up. I can’t say I blame them, I only got a piece of what they experienced every day. It was horrible.

#26

We lost a branch of my family to People of Praise in the 90s.  Same cult as Amy Coney-Barrett.  My aunt and uncle pulled my cousins out of public schools because “the devil lived there”. They were supposedly homeschooled, but that didn’t really happen.  They just went to a batshit crazy evangelical church just about every day.  They were not allowed to join clubs, sports, music, etc. that were not tied to the church.  All other churches were satanic in their minds.  

Fast forward to today, my cousins are in their 30s.  Can barely read, can’t do basic math, know nothing of the world, have zero social skills, are all morbidly obese, and they live off welfare.  They are mean, are scared of everything, hate everyone, and feel they are experts on any topic you bring up even though they are clueless.  They are absolutely worthless to society.  .

#27

I know a few people that escaped Scientology, one was in my class at school. She used to work directly for David Miscaviage. They hounded her & her family. She was born into it though.

#28

Half of my country joined a f*****g cult. We’ve descended into authoritarian populist neofascism and anyone who dissents is now deemed to be a domestic terrorist by the state. No idea how to escape.

#29

I have a friend who has fallen for quite a few. In 1997, she was convinced that the spaceship was coming for her. She became so out of control that she had to be institutionalized. She followed a few others like Stefan Molyneux and of course is now super MAGA with the orange idiot. The only thing I can say is, she’s mentally ill.

#30

He moved to Portugal and spent close to his life savings to become a guru there.

Rarely hear or see anything from him nowadays.

#31

In college there was this girl I was really into who started hanging out with a small group of students, and I really really really wanted to sleep with her, so started hanging around that group too. I noticed the group was always happy, but in a robotic sense. Kind of like smiling, but no emotion behind it. It was really strange. We were invited to go to this coffee bar near the downtown area by a university, so we agreed. The whole atmosphere was weird. I don’t like to be touched, but these weirdos started hugging us the moment we walked in and kissing us on the cheek as if we were long lost friends. The girl was soaking it all in, and immediately my brain says “This is a cult. What did my p***s do this time…” I didn’t want to be rude so I stayed and things just got stranger and stranger. They talked about how they are small in numbers, but one day their numbers will grow and “Josh” will guide them to enlightment. She stayed with the group, and I never spoke to them ever again.

#32

My mother and her best friend fell in with a modern evangelical church back when I was in middle school. That meant us kids got dragged along for the ride. My moms friend felt pretty iffy about them quickly but it was popular in the community like every one in the development was going so they kept going but my mom fell in hard.

This was the type of place to sing rock Christian songs but also make the girls wear white dresses every Sunday and swear themselves to Jesus until they enter their husbands home. I get excommunicated for calling the teen your pastor a hypocrite. Dude taught abstinence and no sinful thoughts but kept the bible study room so cold girls in so cal during summer felt the need to wear hoodies to keep their nipples from showing. Dude would always give the girls shoulder massages while walking around the group, never touched a dude. My mom got baptized while all that was going on. Her friend nopped out and it was just her for a few months. I ended up getting labeled as the devil and kids girls especially told to stay away from me. Funny thing we moved to a different county my final year of middle school. One of the girls in my chemistry class recognized me from the once a month mass services, they held those at a public park I doubt they ever got permits, ended up getting my first HJ cause she wanted to see what the devil was like.

A version of the church still exists locally. They’ve gone through a few fractures and re-brands. The latest iteration got hit with a scandal when the current leader and his wive were charged s*x trafficking and r**e for having underage s*x slaves some of them started as fosters.

#33

A friend got sucked into Ethical Altruism. It was popular among the Silicon Valley set. Blogs like Slate Star Codex, Less Wrong, More Right, etc were where a lot of it was hashed out. From the outside it sounds benign enough: using data and rationality to influence public policy.

This friend invited me into his discussion and “think tank” groups, but the language they used was very dense. Since they were all FAANG leetcoders, I figured my math illiterate a*s was too dumb to understand. Nope, it was just a cult using jargon to enforce groupthink. In the end I backed away because they were very up their own a*s. This friend ended up becoming a “rational anti-vaxxer” during COVID.

As time went on, these groups became convinced that their brand of rationality was the One True Way. This led to batshit offshoots like Eliezer Yudkowsky’s AI apocalypse rantings, and techno-fascists like Curtis Yarvin and Peter Thiel. It’s scary seeing this stuff influence our government now, considering I saw it’s genesis.

#34

Yes, 1/3rd of America is worshiping a game show host who brags about sexually assaulting women.

#35

My aunt and uncle left their church because it was ‘too liberal’ (embraced Bible jesus vs Republican Jesus).

She will now cry if you ever explain that it’s not persecution if someone chooses to believe something other than what she does.

#36

There was a girl in our study group in college who had recently become Pentecostal. She invited us to join one of the services, and I came along put of morbid curiosity. S**t was wild. They had a priest speaking in a fake language made vaguely to sound like Latin and he came around pressing a (almost certainly drugged) copperhead snake’s head to the wrists of the audience. Didn’t feel the need to go back after that.

She quickly started developing a bunch of wild beliefs, many of which were just spiritually repackaged racism and abelism. Stuff like black people not having souls and denying the h*******t because “God wouldn’t allow that to happen.”

Only a couple years later, she got out. Started dating a Mormon guy and converted to Mormonism. Sure it was trading one cult for another, but it was still a noticeable improvement from before.

The real kicker is that she somehow had the highest GPA in our study group. And she was legit very good at the assignments we worked on together. I cannot understand how someone that smart could also be that wildly out of touch with reality.

#37

Yes, it makes me very sad thinking about it actually.

Beautiful human being that I adored….full of life, free spirited gal, great singer…..took a bus across the US and back, and somewhere on her way home she got brainwashed into joining some kind of cult. I don’t remember what the cult was, but its premise went pretty far against her lifestyle, so it never made sense to me.

They allowed her a few phone calls. She called me and a few other people to explain that it was “her choice to join” whatever that group was, and we never ever saw her again.
She was only about 22 at the time, which was nearly 30 years ago.

I hold out hope that she’s found her way out of it. Or if she’s still in it, that she’s at least happy. If she called me today and asked me to drive 3000 miles to help her out of it, I would jump in the car and go get her. I have missed her greatly this whole time.

#38

Had a family friend get brainwashed by a very conservative church, fox news, etc. Not really a cult but he went from a laid back guy who told PG-13 dirty jokes to a homophobic and racist person. Got fried from 6 jobs in an year due to him not shutting up about his views and skipping work and now moved to a southern state since he claims the state he lives in is too Liberal for him. He also got paranoid that me and my brother was out to get him when all I did was block him on facebook and told him that I don’t want anything to do with him.

#39

My aunt did. She’s still in there to be honest but a little removed now. They disowned her to an extent because she accepted western medicine rather than die.

#40

Growing up my mom had a good friend with three kids who was navigating a troubled marriage. At the time she was a non-denominational christian- nothing particularly extreme. Apparently, she was diagnosed with treatable cancer and that caused her marriage to fully fall apart, and the International House of Prayer people caught her at her lowest point. She sold everything she had and moved her two younger children to Kansas City, leaving her eldest with her ex. If you don’t know about IHOP KC, it is an absolutely round the clock indoctrination station that demands people take “pray without ceasing” literally. She “homeschooled” the kids and put them in IHOP’s “youth ministry”, cut off contact to everyone outside the cult including her eldest child, and started working for the church for free. Last I heard, her kids got out, but the whole thing still gives me goosebumps.

#41

I don’t know if it counts but I knew one girl who just could not stop falling for pyramid schemes.

#42

Me!

I was between my freshman and sophomore years in college (2004), taking summer classes because I found out the hard way that what I learned in high school was extremely limited (I was in a private school on a super-Christian homeschool curriculum).

I decided to quit going to church but my mom threatened to take my car away if I did that. So I asked an acquaintance if she knew of a church I could go to in the afternoon and there was one that met at 2pm on Sundays.

Long story short, I was in the International Churches of Christ for 17 years (if you watch The Way Down doc on HBO, that is basically my church, MINUS THE LADY WITH THE HAIR. That lady is an anomaly and I do not know her). I left in 2020. This network of churches controlled every part of my life: what I studied in school, who I dated and befriended, where I lived, who I married (fortunately I liked him anyway and we left together, we have 3 kids), my work schedule, my money, etc. and the crazy thing is, they never actually forced me to do any of it with legalistic language or anything like that, it was a lot of “I prayed about it and God said,” “did you seek advice (aka ask leadership for permission)?” “You’re spending a lot of time ____, seems idolatrous, here’s some scripture on why you should quit” like all this “guidance” to obey leadership but they said it was obeying God.

The many times I considered leaving I couldn’t, because they set it up in a way that I had isolated myself from my family, I had no friends outside the church, I had no money saved to move, no networking or social skills because my friends and jobs were basically curated for me…when we finally left all we had was each other and our kids. 5 years later I’m still very lonely but I’m making my way out of it.

We still run into people that are still in the church, and it’s really awkward because they’re instructed to shun us and not interact but you can see that they want to. Some people ignore that rule and keep in touch with us anyway but we can see that they only do so to try to get us back in the church.

#43

I was hired by a small commercial and residential electrical company in an area with a very well known active cult. Since it was a small and new-ish shop I wasn’t expecting 40 hrs a week.

I show up at the shop one day and am told that I’m working on “the land” one day. I should have mentioned, it was a gated and fenced property that was at least three acres but based on what I found out about these people who knows. Anyways I was tasked with digging out of the ground large chunks of concrete and hauling them out to the middle of the woods. Also, digging in my area might be the hardest digging in the states. We had to use a couple large chunks of wood to build a manual crane to get the blocks out of the holes we dug around them.

The land was pretty much untouched but they had people living all over their property in various types of dwellings and said they ran an animal rescue to explain the 20+ dogs, 4 or 5 cats (that I met), 10 goats, 4 donkeys, and countless birds.

I was bitten by a spider while working for them and simultaneously had my mild sciatica flair up so was kinda limping one day while digging “fence posts” for them and they called their doctor to come treat me. Turns out, their doctor is actually their livestock vet that I once had to let on the property to give some goats a shot that I was told was an antibiotic. They then proceeded to make me get naked and rubbed my legs, butt, and lower back with a weird silver-colored clay/mud and water mixture. Almost like a mask. They also only let us drink “glacial milk”, which according to them is the only water worth drinking. They said you can only harvest true glacial milk a few days every year, when the very first of the glacial runoff starts flowing so that you get all the minerals. It was the same color as the grey Gatorade flavor whatever it’s called but it was grainy and sedimentary so you had to shake it a lot.

They also had underground bunkers and a lot of weird posters paintings and signs.

I’m sorry that I’m not the best story teller but this is a taste of what I just experienced.

#44

All women in my immediate family.

I grew up Catholic but when I was around 12 y.o., my mother and grandmother got into conspiracy theories and spiraled down. From vaccines cause autism and Illuminati, to Hello Kitty being a satanic toy and fluoride in water and toothpaste allowing the government to mind control you.
They became also more fanatical in their beliefs and started going to church every single day, the house became full of Catholic imagery and books.

I started deconstructing in my late teen years and completely left when I heard that during covid, the priests were telling people to not get vaxxed, to not wear masks, to organise secret masses during lockdown and that the sole purpose of covid was to destroy Christianity. When my mother found out I left and no longer lived by Christian rules, she told me it would be better if I was dying of a terminal illness than if I was living in sin 💀.

#45

Fell victim? Hell, I went to high school with a kid who started his own semi successful cult.

His wife and him were “twin flames” and at some point decided they could pull the same grift them selves. At one point they were holding retreats at a Costa Rica resort and eventually they bought the place. After a certain amount of time they pivoted to end of time Christian and wanted to start a society by selling plots on the resort.

Eventually they had to sell the resort. Last tabs I could find on them they had moved to Huntington Beach, where I’m sure they are working on a new grift.

#46

I know a guy who used to fly jets in the Air Force.

He moved into acting in and making movies; still at it: remains popular from what I’ve seen. He’s high up in the cult leadership.

He got divorced a couple times and I don’t think his exes were too deep into the cult.

He’s a bit of a maverick.

#47

If you know someone who voted for Trump, you know someone who has fallen victim to a cult.

#48

Yes it was a s*x cult called one taste. they had their own brand of lube, guys had tonpay, girls ‘worked’ for free. they would use video to blackmail people.

#49

My dad was a moonie. My grandparents got him
Deprogrammed. We have an autographed copy of Ted Patrick’s book at home.

#50

Yes. And I hope I don’t across as belligerent, but yeah. They worshiped a creepy guy, pathological liar, obviously mentally challenged, but very arrogant and evil.

They ended up giving him their whole country and now he’s about to destroy the world’s most powerful democracy in the last century.

#51

A cousin of mine went from a run of the mill American Protestant to a hardcore evangelical who thinks telling her children about Santa Claus is idolatry. .

#52

Just look at MAGA. They are going to be able to bring down a democracy.

#53

Millions upon millions and we ended up with a grifting, pedophile rapist, convicted felon, straight up lunatic who is a domestic enemy to our nation, as POTUS, TWICE!

#54

My spouse has extended family who are Scientologists. They’re all still in it to varying degrees, and they all seem to either work for the “church” or for companies owned by someone in it. They seem like really nice people from the very limited amount of time I’ve been around them.

#55

My mother in law. She fell into TM (transcendental meditation), and they spent decades controlling her, manipulating her to avoid her close relationships and taking a ton of her cash for classes (levitation was a highlight) , supplements and fees… she died separated from family, without any close relationships.

TM appears pretty benign from the outside, but the longer you’re involved, the more toxic and damaging it gets.

#56

I have many friends who got roped into multiple MLMs. They became besties with their fellow huns and stopped talking to me when I wouldn’t support their “business”.

#57

My father fell into the Bhagwan Shree Ragneesh (osho) cult full on the in 80s. Wild stuff.
Watch the documentary called Wild Wild Country on Netflix Unbelievable story. It helped me to forgive my dad by watching. He was brainwashed no doubt. 🙏🏼.

#58

A good portion of my family joined Remnant Fellowship, it’s the cult that was led by Gwen Shamblin. There is a doc about it on hbo max called: The Way Down, it’s about the cult as well as Gwens death. They basically starve themselves for god, there are more deranged cults, but I would say this qualifies. I haven’t had a relationship with any of them since they left. All of my cousins were essentially put into arranged marriages as soon as possible, and they all have 3+ kids.

#59

Well my sister fell into the MAGA Cult and just got crazier. She recently attended Charlie Kirks funeral.. .

#60

My family. Ran by my father. I escaped when I was 20. Life is hard.

#61

My gf’s family were Mormons who left the church at the behest of her dad and joined his friends in some post-mormon cult where they would do strange rituals in the woods, believed in s**t like alternate timelines and dimensions, godlike beings on Earth, multiple apocalypse scares, psychics, etc.

My gf was deeply traumatized by the experience, and it still makes me angry the way the cult treated her.

#62

Yes. My ex-husband joined a church and got born again. Suddenly he had new friends, spent all his free time on church business, started tithing heavily, and demanded that I join. When I wouldn’t, he handed me a suitcase and showed me the door. Took custody of our son AND kept the dog.

#63

My parents. I was born into it so I didn’t have a choice. I had a husband picked up for me and everything. S**t sucked so I ran away during covid, got a therapist, and changed my name.

#64

An acquaintance I went to High School with. He apparently met a girl in college his Freshmen year that turned him onto some kind of cult. Don’t know that the name of the cult is or anything, but I run into him once in a blue moon and he talks kinds of nonsense.

#65

I would define my pervious life in the evangelical (first free) church a cult experience. But not what you’d traditionally call a cult.

I have one friend who is in a much more fundamentalist evangelical church which ticked all the cult boxes more aggressively. Speaking in tongues type s**t.

#66

My mom. Left my family for a religious cult called House of Yahweh when I was only 3 or 4. My older siblings felt the abandonment more than me cause they were more aware. For me, it took a long time for it to sink in that mommy wasnt ever coming back. The hardest part was talking to her on the phone as a little kid. I’d ask her why she won’t come back and she’d reply, “because I can’t. I belong here. You can join me and visit me whenever you want. I ‘miss’ you.” As time went on and I got older, I’d hear from her less and less. When I was around 8 or 9 I recognized that my dad had taken it the hardest out of all of us and I became really resentful of my mother. My older brothers vehemently despised her forgetting us. But then as I got older, became a teen and got my period is just really longed for her. I’d pray for her to return. My dad wouls always tell me to not be mad because it isn’t her fault. She was brainwashed. She was kidnapped by other cult members. Was told that remaining with her family was evil and she needed to be cleansed. Absolved of all “sins of the flesh” or some bs like that. In my 20s I was in an a*****e relationship and reached out to her, asking her adv8ce, begging her to be a mother and save me. Instead she told me I had to make things work with my a*****e bf cause he was the one I lost my virginity to. I cut off contact after that. A few years ago, (about 8 years after cutting her off) her father passed away. No one in the family could contact her. I wish I hadn’t cut her off. I said a lot of horrible things to her and made her cry. I wonder if she is still alive.

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