Meet Dr. Janja Lalich, Ph.D., a sociologist, cult specialist, author, researcher, and retired professor who has spent years studying high-control groups including the Jehovah's Witnesses. Dr. Lalich is also herself a former cult member. In this video, we discuss her professional background, the 10+ years that she spent as a member of a cult, the effect that these groups have on children and why it is so difficult to escape.
Excerpt:
"Cults are self-sealing systems, made up of 4 broad components: 1 - the belief system, 2 the authoritarian charismatic leaders, 3 the systems of control (all control mechanisms), 4 the systems of influence, (all the more subtile influences like peer pressure). All these things come together and create this bounded reality, this closed world and you are right in the middle of it. People think: Why didn't I leave? Well of course you did't leave! You were enveloped in this huge structural system , this social system that completely contained you and constrained you. You had so-called free will, but it's really an illusion of choice, because when you are presented with options, you know exactly the decission you have to make in order to stay in the good graces of the group or the leader or stay on that path of salvation."
Excerpt:
"Cults are self-sealing systems, made up of 4 broad components: 1 - the belief system, 2 the authoritarian charismatic leaders, 3 the systems of control (all control mechanisms), 4 the systems of influence, (all the more subtile influences like peer pressure). All these things come together and create this bounded reality, this closed world and you are right in the middle of it. People think: Why didn't I leave? Well of course you did't leave! You were enveloped in this huge structural system , this social system that completely contained you and constrained you. You had so-called free will, but it's really an illusion of choice, because when you are presented with options, you know exactly the decission you have to make in order to stay in the good graces of the group or the leader or stay on that path of salvation."
