People who have escaped cults all tell a similar story. That story starts with a desire to belong, coupled with a desire for purpose. Strong familial and social bonds are generally preferable to shaky relationships, isolation, and the feeling of being an outcast. Likewise, feeling like one’s life lacks any meaning or purpose is a recipe for anxiety, depression, or even madness. If you talk to people who have escaped cults, they all tell you that they didn’t set out to join a cult—the cult set out to prey on them, offering to fill the voids that we must all grapple with, to varying degrees, throughout our lives. The cult offers inclusion, affirmation, and a secret cult knowledge of life’s purpose. All one must do is take the leap of faith.
Cults are incredibly effective for a variety of reasons, most of which is their ability to lead initiates deeper into the cult, even when those initiates start to sense that the “inclusion,” “affirmation,” and “purpose” offered to them comes with some very nasty conditions and ultimatums. Cult survivors describe how difficult it is to stop placing one foot in front of the other when the cult has total control of one’s physical, social, and emotional environments. Cults work tirelessly to control all information entering an initiate’s eyes and ears. Cults control the books you can read, the news you can watch, the organizations you can trust, the experts you must listen to, and the people you confide in. The cult environment is one of endless propaganda designed to be so effective that one loses control of their own thoughts; loses control over the voice in their head.
Once an initiate finds themselves in the cult’s totalizing environment (see Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism by Robert Jay Lifton) the cult lifts the veil of love, affirmation, and inclusion and reveals a cycle of psychological abuse designed to drag the initiate deeper into the cult’s doctrine. This abuse is justified through a language of purity—initiates must let go of all the bad influences and contamination of their former lives, revealing their deepest secrets through ritual confessions. The point is to strip the initiate down, leaving them totally vulnerable and exposed. Only then can the cult rebuild the initiate in the cult’s image.
Cult survivors will tell you that they often didn’t know they were in a cult until someone pierced the cult’s totalizing environment with a message from the outside; a tether to a long-lost reality; an invitation to step back into the real world. The Queering of the American Child is one such tether, and I hope parents nationwide will receive the message loud and clear: Education is in the grip of a religious cult—the Queer Cult.
PERCEPTION RESET 