Here's Where It Gets Interesting - How to Tell When You've Joined a Cult with Amanda Montell
Episode Date: July 24, 2023Today on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon is joined by author Amanda Montell to talk about all things cultish. There isn’t always a standard definition of a cult, but there are things to l...ook for, and we’ve all fallen for cultish practices or groups before. Language is often used as a tool of influence, like thought-terminating cliches, mantra phrases that are used to shut down independent thinking or questioning. Cultish leaders also take advantage of people by relying on our confirmation biases. We may think we couldn’t be fooled into joining a cult, but human nature is full of mystic moments and irrationality; it’s inevitable that we’ve joined a few cults along the way. Special thanks to our guest, Amanda Montell, for joining us today. You can order a copy of Cultish here. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Guest: Amanda Montell Executive Producer: Heather Jackson Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Hello, friends. Welcome. So happy that you're joining me today because we are going to dive
into the fascinating underbelly of cults. My guest today is author Amanda Montel, who
has a book out called Cultish, and I can't wait to share this with you. So let's dive
in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting.
Amanda, thank you so much for being here.
Oh, it's my distinct pleasure and honor, one could say.
I read your book, Cultish, and okay, first of all, this book, a book about cult language,
and we'll get into that. But it was a
realization to me that cultish is a language much like Swedish is a language, much like English is
a language. There is a language that you call cultish. Yes. Thank you for noticing the double
entendre, word nerd as I am. I was proud of that one. Yeah.
So the book is called Cultish not only because the groups I discuss in it fall along a spectrum
of cultishness. We might not all think of both Heaven's Gate and SoulCycle as full-blown cults,
but we can at the very least agree that they are cultish. But also, yes, the
sort of system of linguistic techniques that this wide continuum of groups uses can be classified
as cultish, like English or Spanish or Swedish. There are quotes in linguistics attempting to
distinguish what separates a language from a dialect. Sometimes people will say a language
is just a dialect with an army and a navy because there's a lot that goes into the classification of a language involving like
politics and borders and how much power a certain group of people has. So anyway,
I might be the only person alive calling this dialect of cultish a language, but there you have
it. Well, it's fascinating. And of course, Americans are very
interested in cults, just broadly speaking. And you talk about this in the book too,
and they always have been probably. There've been cults in the United States since its inception.
Some of them you can look back on and you were like, are you kidding me?
Have you ever researched the sex cults of the 19th century?
Have you ever researched the sex cults of the 19th century?
Yes. The thing about cults is that, you know, we think of like, oh, yeah, there have been a couple cults throughout history.
Jonestown.
Jonestown, like Waco, etc.
only have there been like certain spikes in American history that have lent themselves to socio-spiritual, socio-political freakiness. But what defines a cult is so nebulous and so
subjective and can often be really sensationalist and alarmist that like, if when people are like,
oh, have you heard of like such and such a cult? I'm like, babe, there are so many groups that could be
classified as this. It's like, I could, I have very well gone down rabbit holes researching what
might be classified as a sex cult, but equally fascinating to me is going down a rabbit hole,
watching extreme Swifties rack back and forth, listening to her latest album drop. So it's like,
there's a lot to look into. Oh, do you have full-time
security, Amanda? Are you in a secure facility? Disclaimer, disclaimer. So part of my work
is meant to highlight the fact that the word cult is almost impossible to define definitively. Like cultishness is in the eyes
of the beholder. We think of cults as inherently bad, inherently sinister, dangerous. We think of
cult members as inherently sort of gullible, desperate, maybe intellectually deficient or
something. But cultishness doesn't necessarily have to be bad. There are plenty of reasons to join a cult that are perfectly valid.
We seek community, we seek belonging, we seek identity and meaning and all these really
human things.
So when I refer to Swifties as a cult or, you know, when I refer to Jonestown as a cult,
I'm not necessarily referring to the same risks and consequences. Context is
incredibly important here. And that's why I often hedge my language. And I say these groups for
better and for worse are cult-ish. Do you think there's such a thing as a benevolent cult?
Do you think there's such a thing as a benevolent cult?
You know, kind of like the idea of Swifties being a cult or people who are really into orange theory.
Like, can there at least be a benign cult,
if not a benevolent cult?
Can a cult be benign?
Does something being cultish
have to come with a negative connotation?
You know, I think a cult is,
again, the definition can shift all around because
I can think of groups that are super dangerous, involve sort of all the red flags you might
associate with cults, like an us versus them mentality and justify the means philosophy,
a charismatic power abusive leader, exploitation of various kinds, financial, physical, etc.
And those groups are perfectly mainstream. They're like Silicon Valley corporations,
government bodies. And then again, I can also think of like really fringy, freaky groups that
all wear white or like engage in moon circles or, you know, kind of like sort of soft new age stuff that are really just
relatively benign. So yes, I think there can be a benign cult. And I think there are a few things
that you can look for to tell whether or not a quote unquote cult is healthy to participate in.
And those qualities will differ from person to person. But I think one of the qualities is like, are you allowed to participate casually? Can you genuinely have one foot out the door without super deleterious consequences or shame or fear? Are you allowed to question and speak up to voice dissent and have it be accepted, taken seriously, acknowledged. These are a couple of things to look for.
And the groups that you might think are cultier than others
aren't always how they seem.
So especially in the age of social media,
when you can genuinely join a cult
from the comfort of your own living room couch,
as we've seen with QAnon and incel communities
and like so, so many culty groups that emerge in
online forums and even on Instagram. So it's good to be vigilant, but at the same time,
not so overly cynical that you miss out on genuine connection.
Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. And I love what you just said that it's like kind of impossible to
create one standard definition of cult that we can all
abide by.
It's one of those things that's more, you know, like the Supreme Court defines pornography,
which is like, I don't have a definition, but I know it when I see it.
That is the literal definition.
Exactly.
That is a whole quote that sometimes people reference, like a cult is like porn, you know it when you see it. But I don't know if I fully believe that because we all see different things as cults. is that something that's a really, really important variable in the equation of participating in a
group like spiritual experience or participating in like a sexual experience is that you have to
have transparency and consent. So when you believe that you're signing up for a certain
community experience that bait and switches you or makes you feel like really uncomfortable or
promises you something, love bombs you in a way, and then goes back on its word and is kind of
hypocritical in that way. Those are signs to look for in one-on-one relationships and group
relationships, whether you're talking about sex or spirituality. Sure. What would you say are some
of the biggest red flags when you're like, should I join this group? How would we know if it's a
little bit cultish? I would honestly say, and I'm learning as I go, right? Because there are so many
people who sort of brand themselves as cult experts, cult deprogrammers,
they have a mental health pedigree, et cetera, or maybe they survived a cult themselves,
who will say, you know, here's the system of how you can tell for sure that this group is a cult.
Here's how you know whether or not to get out. And my approach is a little more fluid. I will
say one thing you can do is talk to ex-members and a few
of them as well, because everyone's going to have a different way of processing something that
happened to them. It's kind of like when you're looking for a job, you like want to know like why
certain people quit. I think it's good to be sensitive to when something feels too good to
be true, but at the same time,
it's easier said than done because no one's ever questioning something that they really,
really want to hear. But I would say, you know, if it's possible to talk to people who've been
involved in the past, give it a go. I would also inquire about sort of exit costs. Like,
what are the emotional, financial, social repercussions of leaving?
Okay, you talk about in Cultish that the first key element of cultish language is creating
an us versus them dichotomy.
Talk more about that.
Well, I argue in the book that language is a cult leader's most invisible but powerful tool of influence. We just really take language and its material power for granted. So when you show up somewhere and they're using specialized buzzwords or there's some kind of mantra that people keep repeating, your impulse is not going to be like, oh, this is such a cult the way it might be if you showed up and everybody had shaved heads and was wearing satanic looking robes.
It's just language.
And we all love the feeling of being inside of an exclusive group.
It kind of reminds me of when you're a kid on the playground and you hear people speak pig Latin for the first time.
You're like, they're not saying anything that can't be said in plain English, but they're saying it in an in-group way. And you're like, I want to learn that. I want
to be a part of that. I want to feel special. I want to feel smarter than everyone else. I want
to feel morally superior to everyone else. These aren't conscious thoughts, but language really
gets us to go through that process without really questioning it much. So something to look out for,
whether you're starting a new corporate job with a very strong culture
or whether you're getting involved with a new spiritual group,
when they use insidery buzzwords, acronyms, abbreviations, loaded language,
that causes you to have a sort of strong emotional response,
but gets you to stop asking
questions when it seems to fill everybody with a sense of elitism for no real reason other than
that they know how to use this language. That's definitely something worth questioning. And it's
something that I've definitely seen at various points in my own work life, especially.
Yeah, I think you can see examples of that with QAnon, for example,
where the language that is used is a signal to other people. We're in the same group here.
We're the people who know the truth. The deep state cabal over here, like those buzzwords where
a normal person is like, what the heck is a deep state? What are
we even talking about here? But the fact that you use it and I use it, now we know, like we can
recognize each other. Like we're in the same group. Totally. Totally. And this language is effective
across the political spectrum. Of course, again, the consequences are very different. The material actions in the world that come from it are different. But I try to be really skeptical of whenever an emotionally charged
buzzword is literally only there to signal, I'm a part of your group. It's not there to make
communication clearer. It's not there to foster respectful dialogue or discourse. It's
just there to divide people into that cultish us versus them. And then paired with that kind of
insidery language, which can serve again as a rallying cry, as a symbol of solidarity,
as a way to identify outsiders. There's also a cultish language technique called the thought
terminating cliche. And this is really important too, and something to look out for. There's also a cultish language technique called the thought terminating cliche.
And this is really important too, and something to look out for. It's a term thought terminating cliche that was coined in 1961 by the psychologist named Robert J. Lifton. And it describes a sort
of stock expression that's easily memorized, easily repeated, and aimed at shutting down
independent thinking or questioning.
So in QAnon, and by the way, when I say QAnon, I'm not just talking about the sort of like insurrectionists on January 6th, people who think that elites drink the blood of children to stay
young. Like I'm not even talking about that far of an extreme. I'm sort of talking about this like big umbrella term that QAnon has now been used to describe,
you know, basically any form of right-weaning or new age conspiratorial thinking in the
21st century.
And this could include pandemic stuff, vaccines, microchipping, or like big pharma is trying
to control us in various ways so in q anon one of
these thought terminating cliches might sound like oh do your research you need to do your research
because if someone starts to point out flaws in their thinking they'll say well don't let yourself
be ruled by fear indicating that like fear is really the cause of the pandemic or so much disease that we're seeing,
you know, all the, all the problems in the world are self-generated. And similarly in new age
cults, like NXIVM is one that I can think of. I mean, so many, they'll dismiss valid concerns as
limiting beliefs. I've heard thought terminating cliches come in the form of phrases like, well, you can trust a good system.
A good system always works.
Or if the company's completely flawed set up to fail structure is not working for you.
Well, that's a victim mindset.
And these become these mantras that you repeat and you repeat and you repeat.
And they alleviate cognitive dissonance.
That's why they're so effective, because when you feel in your gut that something
is wrong, but you have put a lot of faith and money and time into this group, sunk a lot of
costs into it, a thought terminating cliche is going to help mend that feeling of discord,
internal discord, at least for a little while so that the person in power can remain in power
for a bit longer. Yeah. It's this notion that when you start to feel uncomfortable with something,
that all you need to do is insert the track of the thought-terminating cliche, press play.
It's almost like taking an Advil for the discomfort. Like the discomfort is lessened.
And people just tell you,
if you just use this track of this cliche of,
you know, trust the system or do your research,
if you just use it often enough,
soon you won't have any of those painful feelings anymore.
Yeah, it really gets you to mistrust your own instincts. And by
the way, these thought terminating cliches also show up in everyday life in the form of phrases
like, well, boys will be boys, or everything happens for a reason. It's all in God's plan.
It's work to think. We don't want to have to think too, too hard. There's so much to think about,
especially in contemporary society, the age of information, there's so much. So when a catchy little phrase can help you not
have to think so hard, we're not going to push back against that. Yeah. It helps you feel better.
Maybe it doesn't completely eliminate the pain, just takes the edge off. And you're like,
what harm is it? What harm is it to think, well, that's a victim mindset. It's just language, right? I can just replace those thoughts, bad thoughts with good thoughts,
and I'm going to feel better afterwards. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey.
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You also talk about how cultish leaders all rely on the power of confirmation bias. And we are all prone to confirmation bias, but cultish
leaders are especially good at highlighting it. And I wonder if you could expound on that a little
bit. Oh, for sure. Oh my gosh. Well, I've really been thinking a lot about cognitive biases lately
because it's the theme of my next book that I'm just now finishing the last draft of.
That one is about cognitive biases in the information age
and how they show up in our personal lives
and cause behaviors that don't make sense even to ourselves.
But yeah, confirmation bias is one of these cognitive biases
that most of us have probably heard of by now
because it's popped up in discourse due to all the sociopolitical discord that's so prevalent in our culture these days. But yeah, confirmation bias,
I mean, it is the tendency to believe and remember and seek out information that validates your
existing beliefs and dismiss or forget or avoid information that controverts it. And confirmation bias, it makes
sense that we would have it because it helps us filter the world. If you had to carefully weigh
every single decision or every single piece of information that crossed your desk,
you would never get anything done. The world would feel very confusing. There would just be entirely too many choices.
And so a bit of confirmation bias is just efficient. But we live in an especially confusing
time. And that confusion and that sense of ennui and disorientation is something that cultish leaders really weaponize because they have created
a sort of system opportunistically. Maybe they didn't create it with any sort of strategy in
mind. Maybe it just kind of like fell out over the course of them seeking more and more power,
but they've ultimately created a system where everything that they're preaching,
they will be able to find a
piece of evidence confirming it. And if you're already bought in, if you want to believe in this
group, that it's going to save you, that it's going to make you feel better, that it's going
to create a more meaningful life for you and make you a better person, it's not literally in your
nature to seek out controverting facts or opinions. We all have a psychological predisposition to irrationality.
And then the culture sets us up to really act on that.
And cultish leaders in various forms are ready to take advantage.
Yeah, I think we all like to pretend or convince ourselves
that we are not prone to confirmation bias because we have done our research, Amanda.
Well, and that's confirmation bias again.
That's right.
We are the ones that are immune from this
and it's all of those other people,
again, us versus them thinking
that they're the ones who haven't done their research.
They're the ones who don't know the truth
and we are completely able to convince ourselves
that it's all of those people over there who are in the whatever cult, political cult, religious cult. Meanwhile, we're immune. We know the truth. that it can be such a triggering and conversation ending term. It can almost serve as a thought
terminating cliche itself to say you're in a cult, you're brainwashed. Nobody wants to hear that
because it's alienating and condescending. It's not helpful. But if we can all acknowledge that
we are all to some degree in some kind of cult, then we can maybe have more compassion for those
who are in quote unquote cults that we don't relate to or that we can maybe have more compassion for those who are in quote unquote
cults that we don't relate to or that we can't understand. It's so hard. It's so hard because
we all have ego. And we like to think that we would never fall for an ideology like that,
like those people. But my work, I always start out like from such a smug little place. You know,
I like started out my research for cultish being like, why do people join cults?
Those silly gooses.
And then I was like, I've been in cultish scenarios.
I am all the time.
And so I'm trying to get humble out here.
Yeah.
I mean, if you think about confirmation bias, serving an evolutionary purpose.
If you think about confirmation bias serving an evolutionary purpose, back in the day when we lived on the plains and we would see a wolf in the distance, our brain has developed
a bias against that animal.
It immediately triggers our fight or flight.
Goodbye.
That's a dangerous thing.
I'm out of here.
We don't have time in that moment.
This is exactly like what you were saying, where you're like, if you had to sit and analyze logically every single piece of information,
you would get nothing done. And in the distant past, you would be eaten. You would have been
eaten by that wolf. You need your brain to make that snap decision in some cases of like,
that animal is dangerous. Get the heck out of here. But the trick really becomes
being able to analyze your own confirmation biases and understanding which ones are actually
serving a very important purpose. Like, oh, a person at the door with a machete,
I shouldn't open the door. That's a bad idea. Like which ones are actually serving you and
which ones are actually serving a cultish practice that maybe you don't want to's a bad idea. Which ones are actually serving you and which ones are
actually serving a cultish practice that maybe you don't want to be a part of?
For sure. We have to. And it's tricky because it's like no one's ever going to fully master
their own mind. It's always going to be mysterious. We're always going to do irrational
things. We're always going to believe things that aren't true or do things that don't make sense. But I think we kind of just have to accept that
it's going to be an ongoing process as life becomes more abstract and more complicated.
I mean, it's becoming more abstract and more complicated before our very eyes every day,
chat GPT and the rest. I think we just really have to be aware of our
own fallibility and to learn as much as we can about it while at the same time knowing that
nobody has the full answers to how to master your mind and nobody ever will. It's just about
having some awareness of that and doing our best with it. And compassion for other people's fallibility too.
It's more about trying to improve versus trying to reach an end point of like,
and now I am logical and rational.
I have no incorrect beliefs.
That is not a position any human is capable of reaching,
nor would you actually want to reach that point.
If you were completely logical, rational, and had no incorrect beliefs, you would be actually want to reach that point. If you were completely logical,
rational, and had no incorrect beliefs, you would be like Spock on Star Trek. That's not a human.
The human experience is not one of complete rationality. No, it's mystical. It's magical.
My new book is called The Age of Magical Overthinking. And I try to have an optimistic perspective on all of this because as much as like my own upbringing because
I'm the daughter of scientists so as much as my own upbringing and also just capitalism have
conditioned me to want to be like my best most rational self-actualized final product of a self
I know that it's not possible and it's not even, I don't even want that at the end of the
day. And so if we join a few cults along the way, it's just par for the course, you know,
we're human beings. I love the chapter that is like, do you want to be a hashtag boss babe?
want to be a hashtag boss babe. And I bet every single person who is listening to this has received a message, a cold DM on Instagram or Facebook, much like the one that you give as
an example, which is like, hey girl, I love your post. You have such a fun energy. I mean,
like every single person I think in America at
this point has gotten the cold DM about, you know, like the hashtag boss babe opportunity.
I know. I know. You know, I actually have never been the recipient of one of these DMs.
You haven't?
No. I don't know what's wrong with me.
You don't have fun energy, Amanda. That's what it is.
It's literally, that's literally what it is. I don't have boss babe energy, unfortunately. The language that
they use is so eerily hauntingly chipper. And they all use the sort of same upbeat,
like uncanny dialect. And I just, I wanted to unpack it and I wanted to learn like,
where do they learn to talk like this? What does it mean to them? How does it work in sinister ways?
And yeah, I peppered the section with some faux outreach letters in the style of the ones that
I've heard about from my sources. Do people get angry with you for talking about it?
No. No? You don't get mean emails about how dare you?
No. I mean, I think maybe my book would be what a Scientologist might call black PR.
We don't read that. Or maybe they don't even think about me. I just don't think that
they're picking up cultish because they don't think they're in anything cultish. The only people who I know are actively mad are
some Scientologists, but not angry enough to litigate, knock on wood. I mean, I went through
a legal vet with the book, so we're all good there. I'm not making any claims about Scientology
being culty that haven't been claimed before.
I've noticed too, that there has been sort of a shift to where influencers like Instagram influencers add different streams of revenue to their businesses. They have Amazon affiliate links. They have like to know it. And then they add one or more products to their stream of income.
Have you noticed this?
That it has now become an influencer product.
The same way that Amazon in many ways has become an influencer haven.
Or the app like to know it for creators has become an influencer haven. And they're actually like, are you an influencer haven, or the app like to know it for creators has become an influencer
haven. And they're actually like, are you an influencer? We want to work with you.
Totally. I mean, this is another one of their rebranding strategies. It's like all companies
are using influencer marketing or a great many of them. Why wouldn't they get in on that? Because
it also looks more legitimate. if you're just one company
in a bevy of this person's portfolio, then you're going to be able to, you know, elevate your brand
image. But yeah, I spoke to a few different micro influencers, as they're called, who are involved
with like various different dieting companies. And it makes the influencer feel, you know, like they're a part of something.
Because if all you have are Amazon affiliate links,
you're not really a part of the Amazon family.
But if you're like a boss babe, like that comes with a sense of identity.
It comes with more purpose and more community.
One of the other things that I wanted to chat about with you was about why do you think humans are so prone to cultishness? And is it the right term to call everything that has this set of
characteristics, to call it cultish? There is a risk of it losing its meaning. But at the same
time, I also feel like generally people are pretty savvy conversationalists. And so when we use the
word cult or cultish in a certain context, by and large, in intimate
conversation, everyday conversation, people know what we're talking about.
No one is confused that when I say that CrossFit is culty, that I'm making Scientology allegations.
It's just interesting to point out that we are seeking community
belonging, meaning, spiritual fulfillment, identity formation in places unique from where we did,
say, 50 years ago or 100 years ago. And it's worth interrogating because there are certain people who are more than willing to take advantage
of those aims. Because you asked what about human nature lends itself to cultishness. It's because
we are communal by nature. We fare better in groups. We don't do well with loneliness.
And we are in an incredibly isolated time in history where we feel extremely
disconnected, at least Americans do. But I think globally, there is a sense of disconnection
as well in many parts of the world. And we need to fill the void somehow. We need to find our way
back to each other somehow. And there are a lot of sort of false prophets who are willing to step in and whether
they're motivated by money or whether they're motivated by something more abstract, they want
to guide people and take people along for a ride that they and only they can drive. And that is happening in really unique, unprecedented ways right now because of
social media. And it's just, it's something to look out for. And I think the word culty,
I've just found it to be an incredibly useful way to call out some of that exploitation.
Yeah. People know what you're referring to. We don't have to completely educate people when
you're talking about what that is. And it's not to say that people can't enjoy Cross we are drawn to want to be part of these
groups? What are we looking for when we are doing these things? Totally. And nobody has all the
answers. I certainly don't have all the answers for how to participate in a cult-ish community
healthily. I just know about the language to look out for. And then you've got
to do what you've got to do from there. What do you feel like are the hopeful takeaways for the
person who is going to read Cultish? What do you hope when they close the book? You're like,
I hope they took away X or I hope they learned Y. I hope that they took away a sense of compassion for people who they might have thought were these
demented cult followers before. I hope they also come away with a sense of skepticism and at the
same time compassion for themselves. You know, it's like we're dreamier as a species than I even
knew. We crave connection over rationality or anything else more than I knew. And that's a
beautiful thing. That's like a messily beautiful human thing. But at the same time, we're living
in a really weird time when it's in a way easier than ever to take advantage of those really
profound drives. So I don't want to create like a generation of misanthropes or cynics by any
means. I really am just encouraging people to hold skepticism and compassion at the same time.
I think that's a great takeaway, that you can be both skeptical and compassionate,
that it's not one or the other. It's not either, it's and and I love that. I think that's a great way to approach many things in life, not just cultishness, but with with equal parts compassion and skepticism
for what is involved. Thanks so much for being here. I your book was really fun to read quick
to read, like definitely kept you moving through the book. It is not a 800 pound PhD dissertation
where you're like, it's very, very relatable. Everybody will see somebody that they know,
or maybe themselves in the pages of it. It'll give you some great education, not just about
cultish behavior, but also about how important cultish language is in gathering converts, in getting people to be part of your group.
And it will hopefully help you recognize perhaps when that is happening in a group that you might be a part of.
So thanks so much for being here, Amanda.
Oh, what a great summary. Thanks for having me.
You can buy Amanda's book wherever you like to shop.
Her book is called Cultish.
This show is researched and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon.
Our executive producer is Heather Jackson.
Our audio producer is Jenny Snyder.
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We'll see you again soon.