People in cults claim great personal benefits and growth and yet, over time, find themselves invariably exploited and harmed by these organizations.

People join cults because they initially experience self-improvement, enlightenment, and other benefits, some of which they experience as utterly life-changing and transformative.

Over against this, all cults — by definition — make serious demands upon their members. By design, cults act to maintain control over their members to the greatest extent possible. This is milieu control and extends to control over relationships, sex, diet, sleep, work, information, speech, clothing choices, and so many other facets of life.

Scientology is a cult, in part, because it makes extremely high demands upon its members and exerts an extraordinarily high level of control over the lives of each and every one of its members.

The diagram above is our attempt to show the intersection of transformation and exploitation in cults. 

We suggest that this intersection of transformation and exploitation is a function of the needs of the organization versus those of the individual. Our diagram shows the opposing forces in all cults that make such groups inherently self-destructive. 

Said another way, as organizational exploitation increases, personal transformation and enlightenment decreases. The slavish obedience to an organization becomes a substitute for enlightenment.

A cult shifts a person’s perspective so that they begin to see their duty as consisting of the defense and justification of the behavior of the organization.

Defense of the organization becomes the meaning of life. This, in turn, justifies all manner of violence, evil, deceit, and treachery in the name of God or of the human founder who is deemed Divine, transcendent, or a special messenger sent by God. 

This is the secret design of all cults: To equate radicalization and unquestioning obedience with enlightenment and the meaning and purpose of life.

This cultic transformation of a person’s consciousness occurs over time and is a function of indoctrinating people by use of powerful, predatory, and manipulative psychoactive techniques.

Scientology is especially expert at applying its potent and predatory psychoactive techniques. The centrality of, and reliance upon, the e-meter is unique to the particular cultic configuration of Scientology.

The cultic organization and the group are far more powerful than the individual. Therefore, this process of exploitation and radicalization inevitably prevails in cults. 

Part of the exploitation process is the organizational tactic of shifting the blame for all problems onto the believer by citing their failure to behave ethically; falling short of meeting the group’s standards; and an unwillingness to sacrifice all for the cause, etc.

This situation persists until the stresses, costs, and pain of the unending exploitation exceeds the perceived transformational benefits. 

As this threshold is crossed, there is a collapse of the believer’s cult-based cognitive structure. This collapse can take many forms ranging from a severe life crisis to a sense of sudden liberation following an escape from the cult.  

Until the stress and pain threshold is reached, cult members live in a state of denial, tension, fear, and cognitive dissonance. This is due to the escalation of commitment.