Cognitive Biblical
Therapy Coursework
Counseling Through God’s
Transformative Word
Course 4, Chapter 21
Section 5: General Counseling Issues
Chapter 21 Cult Recovery
The needs met by the cult needs to be addressed by understanding them and accepting God’s love as the very real solution for them and healing. Unlearning the wrong concepts of God are very challenging for these survivors.
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Chapter 21
Recovery from a Cult
Cult Culture
Our next topic in Case Study 21, is a study of the impact and results of a client being immersed in a religious cult for about seven years. The symptoms of dysfunction in relation to cults are found in the Symptoms and Treatment Text (see Materials tab). The first symptom is an extreme aversion to any organized religion. The second says an extreme distortion of God's love, his character or his unconditional love. A third says potential legalism or abandonment in early childhood and/or adolescence. That's referring to whoever raises the person. Other symptoms include a lack of self-esteem or self-confidence or trust in his or her own discernment or intelligence; extreme emotionalism or legalism; physical, emotional or psychological illness due to stress.
One of the things you have to understand about being in a cult is that the entire, total life of the person is under the scrutiny and control of others and of the cult’s standards. It is a hard to understand this unless you've dealt with someone or been up close to this, but things as incredible as a pet being labeled a sign of pride, and being told you must get rid of it, is just one example. Someone in the cult leadership replaces the Holy Spirit in a totally, completely pervasive manner. The person's actions become public knowledge. It's not uncommon in a cult to have an elder to call out someone in the cult and accuse them of doing wrong. It is not uncommon to do this publicly. They call this “purging” or “making them righteous” or “helping them with” own their sin. But the real purpose is to publicly humiliate and shame them by spanking them. This is done with a hand or a paddle, by an authority, an elder, under the guise of being spiritually good for them. This is part of the effort to dominate, control and manipulate them into submission through humiliation. It's not uncommon to be told who to marry, because God has told me, I have a word of knowledge for you, sister or brother, who you're to marry. When they follow along and get married, but have a rotten relationship, the couple is blamed and told they were sinning.
It's not uncommon for church services that start, say at 6:00 or 7:00pm, and last until noon the next day. This keeps people up, with the threat of not leaving until we get this sin dealt with. You must repent, and ask us for prayer so that you can be made right with God again. Distortion of scriptural teaching is extremely common. The End Times are coming. The world is going to end. There are rumors of wars and earthquakes and all these other things, which is evidence that God will be pouring His wrath out on the world. There's going to be judgment. This steady dose of fear and manipulation results in trauma that makes every preacher seem to be another cult leader. As a counselor, you are coming from a place of authority, so you are also suspect. They have this aversion to religion, even religious counselors or Biblical counselors.
They also have this extreme distortion of God's true character, which usually has started in their childhood. In this case, the client had very rigid parents, so she had a rigid God, therefore, she was very susceptible to a rigid cult. It's sort of all fit, hand in glove. There can be legalism or abandonment in the client’s background. They sometimes go to these cults out of a deep need for something to fill the gap, possibly to find belonging or sense of security. Unfortunately, what they get isn't the true God. It's a controlling God. Along with this distorted view of God will often come suffering some of the effects of abuse, such as poor self-esteem or confidence, lack of trust in his own discernment, low trust in their own intelligence. So, they are prime candidates for a cult leader to step in and affirm, “That's right. You do have troubles, but let me straighten you out.”
Clients can also have experienced a cult that is extremely emotional. Emotional and legalistic. So, their willingness to be publicly spanked comes from the need to be accepted into the group that is affirming and praising God for this cleansing of sin. They go through this gamut of extreme emotions of public shame, remorse, being purged and cleansed and now affirmed and accepted. This cycle over a long period of time can create psychosomatic illness. They may have physical, emotional, and psychological illnesses. They may develop ulcers, anxiety disorders or some sort of a neurosis. They may need psychotropic medication.
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Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Please offer some brief support for whatever position you take.
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Dr. Dan's Answer:
In general, these statements are true. Individuals in a cult are closely watched and usually within the control of other cult members. Once out of the cult, the effects of the cult -- such as public spankings, controlling what they read, taking all assets such as finances, controlling likes and dislikes (such as whether or not it is acceptable to have pets, or who you should marry according to the elders) -- all set up a stigma towards spiritual authority and an unwillingness to give any authority, even genuinely godly authority, any access to the individual.
Discerning Underlying Concerns
Now, go to the treatment text that says, “Make sure that the client is receiving proper medical care for non-spiritual symptoms.” Then, “evaluate the concepts of Agape love through the questionnaire, evaluate personality type and explain the process of brainwashing to the individual.” Next is an excellent handout (see Treatment Text in Materials) that I received from a person who had been in a cult in Champaign, Illinois, where I started my practice. The case study is of one person who was in that cult for about 7 years. The person who developed the handout had been in the same cult for a shorter time, and these two individuals knew each other.
First let's look at the questionnaire results, and then we'll go to the treatment text. Remember that personality type dictates to some degree how these spiritual issues of patience, kindness and such are lived out. This person tended to be an Active-sincere personality. She grew up in a fairly legalistic family, developed some early dependency issues, but rebelled against her father's control as a teen. She had enough strength of character and will to maintain that rebellion. She was in a rebellious state when she got into this cult. The cult fed off the sincere part of her personality type. While they knew that she was strong-willed, they also knew that if they could give the impression of honesty, that she would potentially commit to it, which was what she did. She got into the cult through a Bible study which was the original basis for it. As it often happens, the Bible study became a group who believed they were selected, based on their “true knowledge of God's word” and developed a fellowship. My client got into it at the beginning and got close to the cult leader and became a personal friend of the family, even being the nanny for the two children of the cult leader and his wife. This began her commitment to following the leader and the dependency side of her personality.
Looking at her Agape questionnaire shows her personality type to be Active-sincere evidenced by her high scores: C envy (24), D boast (17), G self-seeking (18), and I keep no record (19). Her middle scores were: B kind (13), E pride (14), H easily angered (18), L protect (18) and O perseveres (12). Her most troubled areas were: A patience (11), F rude (11), J-K delight in evil (10), M trust (10, N hopes (10) and P never fail (8). She didn't tend to be boastful, selfish, keep records of wrong, but she did have trouble in understanding kindness so she would, at times, be a people pleaser. She had trouble with confrontation. She didn't like it in her parents, but went through it anyway, just by being belligerent and then not talking. She also tended to have trouble with pride, and being easily angered. In other words, she was her own worst enemy by the way she dealt with conflict, had trouble with protects, wished she hadn't said stuff, and perseveres. In other words, she tried to do everything on her own strength and her own power.
Her biggest troubles were in patience and of being rude, which is where she'd get herself in trouble. She would get a lot of condemnation because she would get loud, yell, scream, be upset, say things that she shouldn't have said. She also tended to be negative, and a lot of that was because she was impatient, appeared to be prideful or rude, easily angered, didn't trust God, and felt like a failure. Those things all go hand in hand. If you don't stop, think and pray, if you're impatient, then the reactive, harsh, prideful and rude behaviors follow. Well, she tended to do that, so everything always looked pretty bleak to her. She also had trouble trusting God, and having hope, so then felt like a failure. When I explained her personality type and tendencies, her basic concern was feeling very distant from God, but terrified to get involved in a church. She had a lot of self-doubt, and self-condemnation. As you can see, layers of emotional, mental and behavioral concerns. She saw herself as the problem, the reason stuff happens, maybe those in the cult were okay.
The cult, by then, had broken up for many reasons. They'd started another one in another state, where she had started out and then moved into the Illinois area to the second cult. They had both broken up. Some of it had been because they had been investigated by the police. Ultimately, the cult individuals who were responsible for the death of a member were prosecuted, and found guilty. The rest of the cult members were basically abandoned, had no support, and began to have all kinds of problems. A lot of the forced marriages fell apart because they were forced to marry a few weeks into getting to know each other. A lot of the men were brainwashed to believe that the wife has to be submissive to the husband no matter what, because they were the head of the household. When the husband tried to enforce this outside of the reinforcement of the elders in the cult, the wife rebelled and refused to remain bullied into submission.
There was trouble with parenting children. They couldn't assimilate into local congregations, because several times the cult leaders had gone into local churches and accused pastors and congregations, of not being godly, of teaching principles that weren't Biblical. Several times the police were called and damages to the church facilities were reported.
My client came with the statement, “I don't know what to do. I don't know how to draw close to God. I don't know how to deal with this sense of low self-esteem and self-doubt, bitterness and anger.” When I explained her results of the questionnaire, I said to her, “One of the things that you have trouble with is trusting yourself to work with God to find out who he really is. To discern the Scriptures for yourself, give yourself a break, accept yourself where you are, and with what you're doing, and that you are all right, that your righteousness isn't a performance, but it’s given. If you want it, you've got it.” God’s righteousness was given to her, yet it was hard for her to accept. And one of the difficulties in working with someone who has been in a cult is that they have been so brainwashed, they don't know how to trust themselves. Start over. They feel like they're in a confusion or a fog almost all the time, and so they are constantly feeling off balance, frightened and insecure.
Now I want to come back to the questionnaire results, but first go to the Treatment Text, and the heading says, The Conditions That Lead To Mind Control or Brainwashing, Altered Consciousness and Ego Destruction. You can download this text in the Symptoms and Treatment Text. One of the main methods used in brainwashing is that you simply deprive the person of sleep. If you do that, hormones that are produced when we sleep, aren't produced at all. So, the individual loses their sense of reality, or you alter their consciousness so that their ability to grasp reality slips away. You put them in a place where they're unable to sleep very well at all. You keep them up. You give them a hard bed. You make it a bleak setting. You put one light bulb in there. You constantly feed into their cell noise propaganda. You tell them things like nobody cares. Your wife left you. Nobody loves you. Everything is now dependent upon us. We are your world. We are your everything that's altered consciousness, ego destruction is tied to the issue of public spankings, humiliation, making the person doubt their own intelligence, their discernment, which destroys their sense of self-worth and value. The leader gives them a new sense of value which is tied to the cult and the cult’s value system. Part of the control is through controlling the environment. “The mystical environment limits the communication with the outside world which includes media and family contact: attempt at complete separation from the world.”
When my client got into this cult, she was in college and alienated from her parents. She was criticized by the cult leaders for reading outside material and told she only needed Scripture. “Why are you doing that? You know that's of Satan. You know that you don't need that.” There were church services that lasted all night, so she didn't sleep. She was told that her eating was sinful, and so she needed to change her diet to one which was close to vegetarian. Her friends were labeled as of the devil by not having the same beliefs. “You need to be separate from them, sister. They are not one of us. We have the true knowledge, the true understanding of life.” And so, she lost all of her friends. Over time her world became focused on the people in the cult and especially the elders and the cult leader.
This client developed a dependency upon the cult which is understood through her AQAL scores, possibly present as a child growing up in a legalistic household, before she rebelled in her teens. Looking at her low scores in Patience and Never Fails can reflect an insecurity in the fear of failure, then supported by low scores in Trust and Perseveres can reflect lack of trustworthiness of God, inability to persevere with God that leads to leaning on stronger personality types like a cult leader. Not having a trusting relationship with her parents, going to college, she was alone, vulnerable and insecure, potentially seeking answers, security and strength she did not have on her own.
There’s a unique aspect in her AQAL scores that support her dependency, seen in the absence of Self-Seeking and Boastfulness that lead to accommodating nature. Her absence of Keep Records of Wrong is a forgiving virtue, though can also excuse mistreatment from dominating figures in her life. In other words, her high scores in these areas reinforce her low scores in Patience, Never Fails, Trust and Perseverance to develop into dependent relationships, perfect for joining a cult.
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Please list and discuss two of the most major effects upon a client that you perceive after they leave the cult setting. How did the cult impact their personality?
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Dr. Dan's Answer:
There will be an unwillingness to accept and trust authority, and an unwillingness to become part of any church family. With this will come a hesitancy to read the Scripture, trust God, and a sense of unworthiness or distance from God.
The client will display a mixture of personality types and personality disorders -- such as in the case study, an active-sincere personality with a dependent personality disorder. They will tend not to know what to do and how to live once out of the cult.
Mind Control
Number two condition states (Conditions That Lead To …), the “mystical manipulation or use of Biblical phrases in prophecy, the potential convert is convinced of the higher purpose within the special group.” The whole point of their cult was to change the world. They needed to prepare for the time when they would fulfill that obligation, because they were “the elect”, and had special knowledge that others didn't have. You are specifically chosen by God. The group leader says he wants to glorify God, so he wants followers to “give their egos to him, because they were all doing this for God.” They were asked to surrender their entire being to whatever purpose the elder and leaders had for this group. How could you argue with that?
Number three says there is a “need for purity,” defined as “pushing toward perfection as the group views perfection.” In other words, there was no place for objection. Any objection got my client into trouble because she had such a strong will and personality type. They eventually labeled her as rebellious in many ways that leads to stronger obedience and dependency. All the followers are a part of this pushing on to perfection, not as God defines it, but as the elders and the cult leaders define it. This introduced the concept of being unclean, to bring shame and guilt for the impure acts performed before joining the group. You see, the follower is never allowed to get past it. The cult leaders constantly bring back to what the follower’s disobedience, and then tie it to the present and say, “You're still doing it.” And the big problem is that the leaders make the judgement or decision, not the Holy Spirit. Through this sense of guilt and shame, they are controlled. You can't leave the group, because if you don't stay in the group, you'll get back into sin. You won't make it. You won't do well. You'll have trouble. You will sin again. You will have these problems.
Number four says “confession, verbalizing all past imperfections in all religious cults, public or semi-public. Confessional periods are used to get members to verbalize and discuss their innermost fears and anxieties” in order for the leaders to identify inconsistencies in the follower. There's some stuff that no human needs to know. The Holy Spirit needs to know, God needs to hear it, but a human being doesn't need to learn about a problem. The followers lost their right to privacy in the confessional services with the pretense of helping them heal through prayer, words of knowledge and prophesy claiming that God will work through them. Instead of having a sense of dignity, self-respect and privacy or the right to work things out in prayer with God, the person became an open book. Keeping a record of these confessions, the cult gains the ability to be petty, selfish, controlling, manipulative, which also allows the rest of the group to do the same. There's no check, no guideline, no rule, and no boundary. Even the Scripture itself becomes something that you're told what says, instead of what the Holy Spirit reveals to the individual. This isn't to heal or restore the cult member, it is to keep them subjugated, cast down, beat up, emotional, frightened, needy, and dependent on the cult and the leadership.
Number Five says there's an “aura of sacred science. In other words, implicit in this concept is the idea that the cults' laws, regulations and rules are absolute, therefore, must be followed automatically.” The clue says the core of the cult's religious system is sacred and beyond question. Often, the leaders claim their interpretation can be proven, so you don't question it. Because they control most of your life, there's an extreme amount of insecurity, emotion, worry, and doubt. The remedy is the aura of sacred science, which is the cult laws, regulations, rules and even the body of the people within the cult, all willing to accept whatever is presented, right or wrong. My client who is an Active-sincere personality, caused a huge problem, because her mind, by its very nature, questions and thinks and probes, and wants answers. There is nothing wrong with this normally, but in this situation, it was very wrong and over time, squeezed her into not questioning, just following.
Number six says, “Loading the language in each cult: a new vocabulary is invented, confusing well known words with their own new meanings, a developing philosophy of pet and trite cliches.” An example is, the Moonies defined “artistic” to mean “receiving the blessing”. Divine Light means, “receiving knowledge through meditation”. A classic catch phrase is, “I have a word of knowledge for you, sister or brother and God told me to tell you.” Well, how do you argue with that coming from God through the leader? The new vocabulary is not static, or something that can be defined. Instead, it is a growing body of information, so that people purposely are kept confused. God's just given me some new knowledge here. “Let me tell you what this is.” So, here's a new word or phrase, and it's developing philosophy. In other words, it's done in order to control any idea a person may bring up. If a new person enters the cult that has a stronger will, better background, or raises questions, you have to control him. So, the elder, because he's tapped into God, then has the right to say, “Well, God's given me a word of knowledge here,” in order to nail down a person who has a realistic objection. That person has to decide to be submissive or get out. The longer they are in the cult, the less power and strength they have to get out. So, the language is very important.
Number seven says “doctrine over persons. Past experiences and values are of no value in interpreting the new cult morality. The value of an individual member is insignificant compared to the value of the group.” The clue says the group affiliation is primary. “The cult beliefs and tenets are only important as they reinforce, support and nurture the group.” Followers are convinced to surrender their individual thought, preferences, ideas, and beliefs and accept entirely what the cult believes. That is all that each lived for which brough a sense of security, value, and worth through conforming to the cult. At the time, they don’t necessarily know this, but that's what ultimately happened. The beliefs of the cult were formed to maintain the group. The most important tenants were those that supported, reinforced, and nurtured the group. The cult becomes almost God, through the sense of well-being in the family of God. The ability to think, to deal with situations in life, social events, and daily events around them, have all been distilled down into the essence of the cult. Your past knowledge and experiences can’t help you interpret the new morality of the cult. What is left is the activities of the cult: the meetings, the public spankings, the interpretation of the Scripture, and the sense of family. Because the cult is so pervasive, the member has to participate as part of the body in order to even be able to draw a breath.
Number eight says “dispensing of existence. The sharp line a cult draws between those who will be saved cult members and those who are doomed to hell or the rest of the world.” The clue says “this concept polarizes them into we and they, and helps to set apart the cult member from the rest of the world. ‘We are good and the world is bad.’” The person in the depths of this indoctrination cannot identify themselves separately from the cult, because the rest of the world is the enemy. Lacking individuality, differentiation and autonomy erodes the follower’s agency to be who God created them to be. Yet, when this happens, the members stay due to brainwashing, or they are rescued from it, or they ultimately leave because it is destroyed from outside legal authority, as this one was. The “aura of mystery produces a fifth-grade vocabulary and elementary logic,” so that members have become dependent pawns, tools, almost childlike. Under this control, the members aren’t thinking right, and have all kinds of irrational beliefs to pass on to others who are unaware of the conditions of living in a cult. All of the above conditions experienced by a cult member destroys the person's agency so that they can be controlled and manipulated. To help someone regain their sense of self, you will need to know more about cults and how they impact people. Take time to gather further understanding at this website: https://www.spiritualresearchnetwork.org
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What types of major distortion of the true character of God do you believe occurs within the members of a cult?
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Dr. Dan's Answer:
God's character will be seen as harsh, cruel, and legalistic. He will be depicted as a conditional God that is constantly saying "if you love me, then do this or that." This will create a sense that God cannot be satisfied, is impossible to please, and is unrelatable.
Lasting Impact and Treatment
Once the follower leaves or is kicked out of the cult, a follower has no one to follow and is lost. You need to see this almost as a sexual abuse case, in that the effects are deep, pervasive and long standing psychological traumatic bondage. The person's mind has been changed through distortion. Their concepts of God aren't true. They're extremely suspicious. They have been damaged by people who claimed to be godly, so their willingness to assimilate into a church is very poor. So, their support group is going to be pretty limited, at least initially, by their own choice. They're going to have a tendency to close off things that cult members demanded them to do even though people are trying to help them. They're going to be consumed by knowing what happened to the other cult members: where they are, what they are doing, and even talking to them, or traveling to see them. That will be a long-standing issue, and can keep them crippled. They feel a need to remember, relive, and talk about all the different experiences they had. They may keep some ties to the cult leader, which will bother them, through continuing being submissive to a false authority. You should begin counseling by discussing the results of their questionnaire. They will relearn who God made them to be. The longer they have been involved with the cult, the longer counseling will need to occur, due to their transition from depending upon the cult leadership to depending upon God. You can help them get back into a church, or work with people in a church to help build relationships.
My client had a good sense of discernment, was sincere, and wanted to do what was right. Her greatest need for healing was in being impatient. She justified being loud, aggressive, self-righteous, and assuming things about other people. She was rude, negative, and looking for the worst in people and the world. This produced a lack of trust in God, and pushed her to do things on her own strength. Not having hope and being rebellious contributed to her having difficulties and caused her life to be unsuccessful. The cult shamed and controlled her into submission rather than her willingly submitting to a God who is trustworthy. The hardest thing in her recovery was learning who God really is and trusting Him to love her enough to help her change from her brokenness into His design for her.
When she began counseling, her concept of God was one who would beat her up and manipulate her. Scripture had been so distorted, that it took several months before she could begin reading it, and seeing the truth of it. I found over time she did come out of the cult culture mindset that skewed her discernment of God’s Word, and outside the cultish distortions. She did get back into church; she reduced her contact with the other cult members. She built some relationships through her new spiritual discernment. She went on to a good career, bought a house, and she became settled and healed. But to this day, she still carries some stigmas from that part of her life, which will fade over time. If a client is passive, then you would need to work with them on facing issues and not being a doormat. If they had been part of the cult leadership who had been manipulative or extremely prideful, then you would need to address that issue. The follower may be unable to see and comprehend the effect on their belief system. Confronting deep, yet subtle insecurities (i.e., fear to stand on their own with God; “I will fail”, “This won’t work for me”) that prop up the follower’s distorted beliefs (i.e., “I need someone to explain God’s Word to me”, “I need someone to tell me what to do.”) is necessary within a passive personality.
Rediscovering their identity, no longer a follower of Mr. Cult Leader, but a follower of a loving God and Father becomes foundational in reestablishing who the client is in Jesus Christ. Don’t expect instant freedom of thinking or consistency in love, since the redeemed follower of Jesus is practicing his/her Agape love skills. Yet support their faithful steps and courage. Once my client was healed, she confronted the actual leader of the cult and got absolutely nowhere. The leader stated that my client was in sin, and would pray for her. He stated that God had placed him in this position, and he was committed to getting another cult started. She needed to be honest about what he had done, then she was able to let that go and move on with her own life. Steps like Biblical confrontation are extremely helpful, developing their capacity to express their own beliefs and values that are separate from the leader is an act of building agency inside of God’s authority.
So, working with a client out of a cult is a unique situation, because of the brainwashing, the long-term effects of that on people, the different personalities and how they react. One of the reasons I reproduced this material about cults was for you to give that to the client and be sure to review it with them. Suggest other resources to the client to help them understand the mechanics of how the cult worked to control the mind and manipulate the emotions and build false realities. They are oblivious to the reality and the evil of mind control and the brainwashing that has been done to them. It will be difficult for the client to believe it though will learn it over time.
Copyright1987, 1990, 1993 by Daniel D. Wilkinson. All rights reserved. For more information concerning this material, write to
The Biblical Christian Counseling Ministries, Inc, 2730 Radcliffe Dr. Florissant, MO 63031.
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Describe the client's loss of "agency." According to God's Agape love, how is godly agency developed by a now freed member of a cult?
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Dr. Dan's Answer:
The loss of the cult follower's ability to make their own decisions in a cult culture forces thinking and behavior conformity. After leaving the cult, the freed follower takes steps of faith by grace to move towards "God-dependence," shifting away from dictatorial rules to discern God's Word through the Holy Spirit.
This person can develop their ability to wait with God in the process of patience, learning to trust that His way is better, practice Agape love skills, and surrender their own way of what love is not.
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