The Secret Language of Cults: Crash Course Lecture

What if I told you that there was an

incantation that could control people's

minds? A certain combination of words

used in the right order to bend people

to your will. What if there were whole

vocabularies of these complicated mazes

of buzzwords, mantras, euphemisms,

cliches, and redefinitions?

And these all add up to a kind of

spellbook that a select few of history's

greatest influencers secretly possess.

From Jesus to Jim Jones to Jeff Bezos,

but also Taylor Swift, Pelaton

instructors, and even old friends

selling essential oils in your DMs. And

here is the kicker. You are probably

under the spell of these words right

now.

This is a story about words. Words that

alter the course of history. Words that

hold invisible power. Power that can be

used for good or for evil. Hi, I'm

Amanda Montel and I'm a devoted follower

of the cult of social science. I'm a

social commentator with a background in

linguistics and the author of

non-fiction books including cultish and

the age of magical overthinking. Welcome

to a crash course lecture.

[Music]

If I described my yoga studio as a cult,

a certain image might come to mind. It's

not a cult really, but there's something

about it that's definitely cultish.

Cultesque, and that's something, it's

language. The language some fitness

studios use is striking. It's driven by

ideology, ritual, even dogma. They

promise a kind of belonging that isn't

necessarily bad, but it is at the very

least alternative. And it's not just

yoga studios and CrossFit gyms. There's

cultishness in the places we work, the

places we go for fun, and in our social

media feeds. This kind of language is

everywhere. Each of us is constantly

influenced by the very same language

strategies that created notorious cults

like Jonestown, Heavensgate, and Cinon.

Cultishness has been around throughout

human history, but it's different now,

ramped up. If you ask me, today we're

living in the most cultish era of all

time. Why? It's complicated. The modern

world is chaotic. Our systems are

riddled with labor and wealth

imbalances. Ads and influencers are

pushing us to consume more, while

environmentalists warn us we should be

consuming less. And the crushing

pressure to self-brand online has made

us so anxious that our cravings for

validation have become insatiable.

Not speaking from experience or

anything. In the past, during times of

turmoil, many people found at least some

comfort or guidance from traditional

authority figures like church leaders,

the government, news reporters, and

medical providers. But here in the US

over the last 50 years, our faith in

institutions has been in steady decline.

So much for comfort and guidance.

Meanwhile, in my friend group, we often

joke about starting a commune to deal

with housing costs. A compound just

makes sense in this economy. Are we

joking though?

[Music]

These conundrums are all eerily

familiar. They remind me a great deal of

another time in history that I am very

familiar with. They remind me of the

world my dad Craig grew up in in the

1960s.

I was raised on my dad's stranger than

fiction tales. Stories of this remote

stretch of land in California where kids

didn't go to a real school and adults

had to shave their heads if they broke a

rule. Stories about how his parents,

seeking a life free from the obsession

with work and wealth, took him and his

halfsisters and joined a cult. This tale

starts in 1969,

a time of incredible socopolitical

unrest in the United States. We're on

the heels of the John F. Kennedy

assassination

and civil rights movement

were in the throws of the Vietnam War.

In the face of all this, in the 1960s

and '7s, countercultural groups started

springing up full of people seeking ways

to thrive without relying on those

systems. from Woodstock era hippies and

transcendental meditators to more

sinister groups like the way

international and Scientology. It was so

dramatic that some scholars refer to

this period in the mid- 20th century as

the fourth great awakening, grouping it

together with other major religious

transitions in American history. And

here we find my dad or the person who

would become my dad because Craig was

all of 14 when he moved with his family

to Cinon.

Cinanon was a community that started as

an alternative drug rehab center but

expanded to attract lifestylers like my

grandparents. That was the word for

so-called squares who didn't need rehab

but still wanted in on this lifestyle

experiment. Best thing for people is

people and Cinon provides the

environment to bring together peoples

from all walks of life.

Cinon was the antidote to all the

problems of the modern day. Offering a

template for who to be and how to live

morally sustainably healthfully which

I get. It relieved some of that stress I

mentioned at the start. It provided that

missing comfort and guidance. And at its

best, Cinanon was saving people's lives.

Moving there was truly transformative

for many, including talented artists and

musicians who chose to trade their

addictions for playing nightly tunes and

getting high on nothing but group

bonding. But from my dad's perspective,

things in Cinon were a little weird.

Like everyone dressed alike. Overalls,

short haircuts. It was actually pretty

hip by today's standards. Cult chic,

compound casual. members used all kinds

of special words and did mandatory

rituals. But the thing that really

freaked out my dad was how everyone was

so obsessed with Cinanon's visionary

leader, Chuck Dedric, a normal guy who

they treated as a man god.

So my dad became a loner just trying to

fly under the radar. As I grew up, I

became fascinated by groups like this,

wondering what drives the irrational and

overly uniform beliefs within them. And

I started to notice something. The same

kind of language that Cinanon used to

recruit and isolate their followers. It

was everywhere. This language can be

found in our everyday lives,

manipulating us even and especially in

places we wouldn't expect.

[Music]

But pause. Before we get much deeper, we

should figure out what the word cult

even means. Because on the surface, an

exercise bike company and a sober

compound in the hills don't have all

that much in common. I've heard it said

that cults are like porn. It's a joke

that references a famous 1964 Supreme

Court case where when asked for a

definition of pornography, Justice

Potter Stewart said, "I know it when I

see it." As soon as I say the word cult,

you might picture a certain image of

robes, a kind of dazed look, super long

hair, dirty feet. But that's just a

stereotype. The word cult hasn't always

had sinister undertones at all. Let's

take a detour to the 17th century. The

earliest written usage of cult traces

back to the 1600s when the word meant

homage paid to divinity or offerings to

win over the gods. 200 years later, by

the mid 1800s, cult evolved to mean a

kind of churchly categorization, more

like sect, used specifically to describe

ancient or primitive systems of

religious belief. The word conoted

something unorthodox maybe, but not

necessarily malignant. Around this time,

dozens of sociospiritual clicks were

cropping up and fading in the US.

Polyamorous communists, egalitarian

inventors, vegan farmers. There was

basically a cult or sect for anyone. I

mean, one of the reasons the US was

founded was for religious freedom. And

America had gained a reputation as the

sort of place where you were free to get

as socioposiritually freaky as you

liked.

It wasn't until the 1960s and 70s that

the word cult started gaining a darker

reputation.

The mass emergence of non-conformist

spiritual groups unsettled traditional

Christians.

Then came several high-profile cult

related tragedies. The Manson family

murders of 1969 where celebrities and

everyday people were killed in their

homes. and the Jonestown massacre of

1978 where over 900 people unwillingly

took their lives under the influence of

their leader. From there, the word cult

was solidified as a national symbol of

peril. What followed was a period in the

1980s known as the satanic panic when

conspiracy theories about cults abusing

suburban kids spread around the US like

wildfire.

Here's what I find especially

interesting, though. As soon as cult

became synonymous with harm and infamy

in the 70s, it also became kind of cool.

That's why we have slang like cult

following and cult classic to describe

midnight showings of the Rocky Horror

Picture Show or the followings of jam

bands like the Grateful Dead. This wink

wink hyperbolic interpretation of the

word to describe devoted fan bases is

why I can cheekily reference soul cycle

as a cult brand or describe Disney

adults as culty. And you know I'm not

talking about communes and death. At

least hopefully not. Which brings us

back to the task at hand. I was supposed

to be defining cult here but as you can

see it's really hard. You understand how

we get to I know it when I see it.

Because that's the thing about language.

In everyday practice, definitions are

determined not by academics or

dictionary makers, but by us, the

speakers. Meaning depends on the person

you're talking to and the context. Like

when cult is used to write off groups

that mainstream society judges, folk

magic practitioners, for example.

There's more on that aspect of the term

in Crash Course Religions. But when it

comes to sinister cults, it can be

helpful to have a less vibes driven

definition. A number of psychologists

have developed rubrics for this. They

include things like, does it have a

charismatic and idol worshipped leader

who offers validation and is the only

source of truth and wisdom? Is there

abuse, including financial, sexual, and

or labor exploitation? Is there extreme

paranoia about the outside world and no

tolerance for questioning? Is there

meaningful financial transparency and is

there a viable exit strategy? That's the

checklist I tend to use personally and

it comes in part from psychiatrist

Robert J. Lifton and in part from the

Cult Education Institute. There's

ongoing disagreement among scholars

about what should go on these lists. But

the point is when I say something is

cultish, it usually checks off at least

one of these boxes. The checklist can be

applied broadly. Like I can think of

some celebrated Hollywood clicks,

Silicon Valley companies, and fitness

studios that check some of these. And

unfortunately, you won't find a major

religion that doesn't check some of them

either. But I see the world through a

socio- linguistics lens. So for me, the

most interesting connection here isn't

that you can find abuses of power

everywhere. It's that you can find the

same type of language everywhere.

strategic language that holds a lot of

power and influence. Society has changed

since 1969 when my dad joined Cinon and

it's primed us to become the most

cultish era ever.

[Music]

But before we can get into the real

cultine, we've got to understand what

happened in the 1960s when my dad moved

with my grandparents to Cinon. It was a

time of cultural turbulence and fear,

not all that different from today. But

this was also before the internet,

before social media. To learn about

Cinanon, my grandfather had to get up,

leave the house, and talk to people in

person. Contain your shock, Jenzie. But

in today's world, we're more isolated.

In 2024, an American Psychiatric

Association poll surveyed over 2,000

American adults and found that 30% had

felt lonely every single week during the

last year. So, how did this happen?

According to a 2024 survey from Harvard,

participants reported being overworked,

not seeing family enough, a lack of

spiritual life, and the biggest culprit

for loneliness is digital technology.

Let's be real, skimming through your

friend's life updates isn't the same as

catching up IRL. Add to all this the

fact that we've basically got a tragedy

on demand machine in our pocket at all

times. A 2019 report from John's Hopkins

University looked at young people who

spent more than 3 hours per day on

social media, and it found that those

people internalized problems more,

making it harder to cope with depression

and anxiety. So many of us are more

disconnected than ever while also

carrying the weight of the world in our

pockets. It's like we've forgotten we're

humans. We're all about community. It's

part of how we managed to survive as a

species for so long. And if we're not

getting community in person, many will

try to fill that relationship void some

other way. Cue the heavenly internet. #

blessing us with the keys to find any

kind of community we could ever want. In

a way, that's beautiful. But when I say

any kind of community, I mean any kind,

including fanatical fringe groups with

charismatic leaders who are paranoid

about outsiders who think they have all

the answers and whose beliefs are

dangerous to question. Unlike my

grandfather, we don't have to leave our

homes to subscribe to new ideologies. We

can be profoundly influenced without

even leaving the couch. Today, most

zealous fringe groups build a digital

system of morality and community. And in

lie of a physical meeting place, jargon

gives them something to assemble around.

I'll never forget when I first

downloaded Instagram in the summer of

2012. I was struck that the app called

its account holders followers instead of

friends or connections. It's like a cult

platform. I remember saying, "Is it not

encouraging everyone to build their own

little cult?" And while these platforms

claim to make an effort to stop truly

dangerous ideas and disinformation from

spreading, those safety nets certainly

don't catch everything. Ultimately,

algorithms tend to prioritize spicy

content, whether or not it's true. In

fact, one 2018 MIT study found it takes

true stories about six times longer than

false ones to reach 1500 people on the

app formerly known as Twitter. Why?

Because false information seems more

novel, more exclusive, and wise,

authentic in its outlandishness.

Here's an example of how this has

worked. QAnon, a disperate online group

which has been linked to real world

extremist violence. Q Anon involves a

kind of spiderweb of different

conspiracy theories, rituals, and

buzzwords, all of which promise answers

in these uncertain times. The most

extreme of QAnon's ideologies attest

that an evil cabal of elites or satan

worshipping child abusers secretly runs

Hollywood, the media, and the Democratic

Party. And Donald Trump was divinely

sent to save America and the world from

this vast evil. Q Anon rose in fame and

popularity not through in-person

meetings but rather internet forums and

social media posts. Qanoners use a

glossery of lofty, vague, and

everchanging vocabulary like 5D

consciousness and do the research in

order to intrigue curious recruits who

might not get on board with overtly

violent language out of the gate. They

also do this to avoid the surveillance

of social media companies who might be

on high alert for QAnon threats and shut

down accounts that use certain

terminology. It's easy enough to dismiss

online cults as not threatening in the

real world, but the influence of groups

like QAnon has led to very real harm.

For example, in 2016, a man radicalized

online showed up at a pizza parlor in DC

that was the center of a bogus

conspiracy theory. It was spread on

sites like 4chan, which became a major

hub for KQAnon. He opened fire in the

restaurant and told police he was there

to self-investigate the conspiracy

theory.

Of course, KQanon is not the cult for

everyone. But what about influencer

fandoms, which seem positive at first,

but end up taking over someone's whole

value system? In today's world, many of

us find ourselves in parasocial

relationships where we feel like we have

a special connection with someone we see

online. And when someone makes us feel

known and seen, especially if we're

isolated from the people around us,

that's a well doumented risk factor for

falling prey to charismatic cult

leaders. So in 2025, our ultimate cult

leader may be father algorithm and

comment sections are new compound. It's

easier than ever to fall into nefarious

ideas or get wrapped up in something

cultish. And the really wild thing is

the language tricks that cult leaders

use, our brains are actually wired to

fall for them.

[Music]

So, what are those tricks and how do

they work? Enter the game. The most

memorable of my dad's Cinon stories had

to do with something called the game.

The game was the centerpiece of Cinon

life, and it was essentially a form of

endurance training or group therapy

where followers gathered around in

so-called tribes and were invited to

single out other members to verbally

berate them. The game could be hostile

and even traumatizing. And yet in

Cinanon language, it was described as

something you played. And playing was

required even for kids. It happened

several nights a week and might involve,

say, one member calling out another with

whom they had personal beef and shouting

at them for being lazy or spoiled. This

was called a pull-up. Then others were

encouraged to join in on the vitriol,

also known as backing the play. Life in

Cinon was framed within two rhetorical

categories, in the game and out of the

game. And when you were in the game,

nothing else in the world existed. After

the game was finished, you were supposed

to compartmentalize, move on with your

daily Cinon tasks as if you hadn't just

been verbally maligned for 7 hours,

you know. And people say, "Well, what is

the Cinon lifestyle?" We all play the

game here, the Cinon game. and that the

contrast between the game and the notame

is what makes up the lifestyle.

When I heard about all this, I was

fascinated by the way Cinanon used

euphemisms and insidery buzzwords to

reshape followers reality. It sent a

shiver down my spine. My dad said that

some members, like my grandfather, were

actually addicted to it. In this way,

the game kind of reminds me of when

online comment sections get really

heated. You know when people can't stop

posting negative or conspiratorial

comments, thinking they're calling

someone out for some moral infraction,

but really they're just aiming for clout

and maybe catharsis. Let me know what

you think of that idea in the comments

below. The Cinon game was like that, but

in real life. Describing what it felt

like to play the game at 14, my dad

said, "To me, the torrent of heated

accusations felt like verbal carpet

bombing. I wished I were invisible." He

felt constantly gaslit, trapped in the

linguistic prison of the game.

Okay, buckle up. Things are about to get

nerdy. In linguistics, there's a concept

known as the theory of performativity,

which argues that language doesn't just

describe or reflect our reality, it

creates it. The idea here is that speech

itself has the ability to cause

measurable changes in the world. If that

sounds a little hocus pocus, think about

when a justice of the peace pronounces a

couple married or when an umpire calls

you're out. That's how that works,

right? Not really in the cult of sports.

And in synonyon, that exclusive, heavily

repeated jargon, including phrases like

in the game and out of the game, plus

all the charged verbiage wielded during

the game itself, worked to create a new

reality for followers. Studies have

shown that repeating words and phrases

makes our beliefs stronger. This is a

describable phenomenon. It's called the

illusory truth effect. The illusory

truth effect is one of many mental

shortcuts that our brains used to make

efficient decisions. And for most of

human history before a time when

misinformation could spread so fast and

far online, the illusory truth effect

worked well enough. Like picture you're

a hunter gatherer. You're not on blue

sky, okay? If everyone in your community

tells you the red berries in the swamp

are poisonous, that's going to stick. It

might even save your life when you're

out foraging. And if that isn't true, at

least it didn't hurt. The trouble is,

our minds are still inclined to

interpret any repeated phrases as

reality. Like, if you heard something

repeatedly during the Cinon game, even

if it was cruel, even if it was untrue,

it could easily start to feel like a

fact. And if you wanted to question

that, if you confided to a friend that

actually you don't think the game is

helpful, they might respond with the

synonym phrase act as if. Essentially,

this was a cue to pretend you agree with

the cult's rules until one day you

sincerely do. You know that phrase, fake

it till you make it? This was kind of

like Cinanon's version of that. But in

Cinon, act as if was rooted in the

belief that anything invented by Chuck

Dedrich had to be good because he was

supremely wise. Act as if is an example

of a cult language technique called the

thought terminating cliche.

Thought-terminating cliche was coined by

psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton in 1961.

And it describes a kind of zingy stack

expression that's easy to memorize, easy

to repeat, and at its worst is aimed at

shutting down independent thinking,

questioning, or push back.

Thought-terminating cliches combined

with another linguistic strategy to keep

Chuck in power. loaded language, aka

emotionally charged labels and buzzwords

that meant something innocuous or

nothing at all to outsiders, but could

be used on followers to create an us

versus them mentality or even make

psychological threats. Like, does the

term splitty mean anything to you?

Probably not. But in Cinon, that was the

label used to describe those who'd left

the group, the ultimate betrayal and

cardinal sin. Loaded buzzwords like

these are hyper effective because they

jive well with our brains tendency to

form in-groups and outroups. And again,

detecting social patterns like these has

historically been really helpful for

survival. But when a community's aims

are more cerebral than foraging for

food, relying on our crude us versus

them instincts rather than critical

thinking becomes a problem. But to

people in Cinon, this might not have

felt nefarious at all. It may have even

felt fun. In my experience talking to

survivors, cultish language is often the

first thing you pick up when you get

involved with an in-group and the last

thing you let go because it's organic,

invisible, and seemingly

commitment-free. Remember learning pig

Latin on the playground as a kid? It was

like a secret code, and it immediately

made you feel like one of the cool kids,

right?

What's that?

Well, at least I thought they were cool.

Anyway, pig Latin is pretty far from

synonyon lingo. And so far, you might be

thinking you've been able to escape the

worst of cultish influence. Trust me, I

get it. I'd like to think I have, too.

But it's not just infamous cult leaders

who've caught on to this. In fact, this

kind of manipulative language is sused

into our everyday lives in ways we don't

even notice.

[Music]

Introducing corporate jargon. You might

not work at a company where people walk

around saying things as ridiculous as we

need to leverage our synergies to drive

innovative solutions. Or maybe you do,

in which case, wo. But most companies

have some kind of loaded language used

to motivate people to work hard and help

them feel like they're a part of the

company mission. A business scholar

named Manfred Frqued Devise explained to

me that in the workplace an excess use

of slogans, code words, meaningless

corporate jargon, and company chance can

be a clue in distinguishing if an

employer is treading into dangerously

cultlike territory. In his words, quote,

"All companies have special terms, and

sometimes they make sense, but sometimes

they're nonsense." As a consultant, I

sometimes enter an organization where

people use acronyms, but they don't

actually know what they're talking

about. They're just imitating what top

management says. A famous example of

this is Amazon, a company whose ideals

take classic American values like

meritocracy, individual ambition, and

climbing ladders, and institutionalizes

them into what I interpret as a

religious dogma of sorts. For example,

Amazon has its own version of the Ten

Commandments, so to speak, called the

leadership principles. They include high

flulutent phrases like think big, dive

deep, have backbone, and deliver

results. According to the New York

Times, Amazon encourages employees to

memorize the principles when they're

hired, then live and breathe them both

in and outside the office, like biblical

proverbs. Some employees even teach them

to their kids. Ex Amazon employee and

writer Christy Coulter once told me that

some employees misinterpret the

leadership principles as a justification

for asserting power over their

co-workers. Like using the disagree and

commit principle as an excuse to pick

fights or tear apart fellow employees

pitches in meetings almost as a stunt to

demonstrate their loyalty to Amazon's

mission. Not terribly unlike the Cinon

game. In a society where work and

consumerism are slowly replacing

classical religious institutions as a

system of belief and belonging, this

kind of language is worth keeping an ear

out for. An even more famous example

comes from the multi-level marketing

industry, aka MLMs. This is Tupperware.

You can freeze it, stack it any which

way.

Within pyramid-shaped MLMs, recruits

sell products like leggings or health

supplements to their family and friends,

in turn, luring these people to become

sellers themselves. Recruits are

regarded as business owners, even though

none of the traditional rules of

entrepreneurship apply. MLM acolytes are

labeled consultants or distributors. And

the higher one moves at the structure,

the more grandiose their titles become.

Director, executive, triple ground

diamond, most distinguished mistress of

linguistics.

Yeah, I can see why that's appealing.

What's fascinating about MLMs is that

they're not actually selling financial

independence in any concrete way.

Instead, they're selling something much

more abstract and very American.

Optimism. Faith that you can achieve the

American dream, even if it's numerically

impossible. And that promise is made

with this sparkly language.

Imagine a note like this sliding into

your DMs from an old high school

classmate. Hey, girly pop. Loving your

posts lately. You have such an amazing

energy. Have you ever thought about

turning that energy into your own

business? I used to be miserable at my

old 9 to5 and now I make a full-time

living working part-time for myself from

home without ever having to leave my

little one's side. Would love to grab

coffee and tell you more. Data shows

that since the Tupperware party days,

MLMs tend to target stay-at-home wives

and mothers, as well as other

demographics like college students and

immigrant communities who are generally

locked out of the dignified labor market

and simultaneously seeking purpose. They

also tend to have a strong base of

friends and family to recruit from, lots

of hope for the future, and at least

some spare money and time that they'll

likely never get back. Even beyond work,

similar strategies stretch into our

niche interests, our fandoms. Like,

don't get me wrong, I love T-Swift's Red

Album. But it isn't lost on me that

Swifties have a robust glossery of fan

lingo used to build community around

their parasocial god. References like

Kalor and Gaylers, the numbers 13 and

89, and phrases like not a lot going on

at the moment are used to make fans feel

part of a movement, to give them power,

to show their real devotees above casual

listeners, countless internet

communities, from fantasy sports leagues

to political forums, have loaded

language of their own, too. And while it

can be used to construct a positive

sense of belonging, DFTBA, am I right?

It can also create needless us versus

them conflicts and shut down independent

thought, especially if the people

involved don't quite know why they're

saying these chants and buzzwords that

incite such strong emotions. That

language tobrain connection is powerful.

It can be used to bind someone to an

in-group and make them feel like they

can never leave. It can be used to

confuse a follower so they start to

believe the only way to know what's true

and guarantee their safety is to depend

on the all- knowing leader forever.

[Music]

Okay, so we've talked about what a cult

is, how language is a cult leader's most

powerful and sneakiest tool, and why

modern society is so susceptible to

these strategies. But there's still a

question that haunts me. If cultishness

shows up in the words we use every day,

if we can hear it around us, then how is

it still so effective? Cultish language

can actually be really hard to clock

because it often evolves slowly. For

example, sometimes cult leaders take

existing English words that followers

have been using their whole lives and

gradually twist their meanings until

they have a whole new definition that

serves the cult. I once interviewed a

survivor of the healthy, happy, holy

organization or 3HO, a dogmatic

condundalini yoga based group who told

me that one common English term that

meant something totally different to her

group was old soul. To most of us, old

soul describes someone who's wise beyond

their years. It's a positive thing. But

to a 3o member, the phrase was warped to

mean someone who'd reincarnated life

after life and could never get it right.

It was threatening and it could be used

to frighten followers into obedience

because if you broke one of 3's rules,

like by eating meat or failing to study

scripture at a certain time, you'd be at

risk of lowering your vibration and

becoming an old soul.

In different flavors and with varying

aesthetics, this kind of language is

used to coers people in all destructive

cults. But people don't fall for things

like this because they're foolish. In

large part, it's because cult leaders

are taking advantage of not just the

power of language, but also a handful of

vulnerabilities that have been hardwired

into our heads since the days when we

spent most of our time gathering nuts

and berries. I see it like this. The

brain is like an operating system. Let's

call it OS human. In lots of ways, OS

human is really advanced these days. It

can send a text message and open 250

browser tabs at the same time. Not to

brag, but in other ways, it's the same

basic operating system we've been using

since we started walking upright. For

one thing, OS human has a strong natural

inclination toward communalism, loyalty

to our own group, which we may view as

superior to other groups. And this makes

sense evolutionarily. The famous

biologist Charles Darwin pointed out

that for survival purposes, it's ideal

to have a relatively small community.

Think about it. It's way easier to take

care of a few dozen people than a few

hundred or a few billion. But our world

is much larger now. We're connected to

way more people. And yet, OS human

hasn't completely updated. We still tend

to be fiercely loyal to the insular

groups we're a part of. even if they're

virtual, even if they're not really our

groups in any sense resembling what

Darwin was talking about. And here's the

thing, that OS human source code was

built on some not so reliable

foundations. This is due to cognitive

biases, psychological tricks that

developed in early human brains to help

us make efficient decisions with our

limited time, memory, and brain power.

The illusory truth effect I mentioned

earlier is one of them. Another is

confirmation bias. This is our tendency

to only seek out, notice, and

internalize information that validates

what we already believe. Confirmation

bias can make it hard to accept or even

notice new contradictory information. It

allows us only to hear what we want to

hear. And part of a cult leader's

charisma is their ability to intuitit

this. Like going back to Jonestown, one

survivor named Laura Johnston Cole once

told me I was there for political

reasons. So Jim thought, "Every time I

see Laura sitting in a meeting, I have

to address politics. I let him address

my priorities and put blinders on for

other things." This is classic

confirmation bias. One more major flaw

in OS human, the sunk cost fallacy. This

is the belief that if you've already

spent resources on something like money

and time or even hope and secrets, you

can't give that thing up. If you've

already sunk 10 years and your life

savings into a group that promised you

transcendence, you're going to be

heavily motivated to justify your

choices to prove that any day now the

time and hope you put in will pay off.

Sun cost fallacy plus thought

terminating cliche.

Game over.

That's the power of cultish language

over an operating system full of

cognitive biases.

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So there are all these factors working

against people getting out of cults.

Sometimes it can seem nearly impossible

to escape. But there is reason for hope.

Here's the story of how my dad got out.

When my dad was in high school, he was

in the thick of it. He was surrounded by

friends family teachers doctors.

Everyone around him had so fully

absorbed the language of Cinanon that

there was really no other language

spoken. There was no education except

cult education. Cinanon kids were

required to go to the school on site,

which wasn't teaching multiplication

tables or multiple perspectives. It was

designed to keep them solidly imshed in

Cinanon culture. But Craig was

simultaneously learning to think in a

different way by being exposed to

science. He worked in the group's

microbiology lab where he'd test

followers for diseases because they

wanted to avoid outside hospitals. In a

way, the lab was his sanctuary. It was

the one space in all of Cinanon that was

governed by questions and empirical

facts. It gave him practice thinking

critically and accessing a diversity of

information. And as his interest in

biology grew, he knew he'd need to go to

college if he wanted to continue to

learn. That meant he needed an

accredited degree from an outside high

school. So Craig began hitching rides

into San Francisco to attend one against

tradition and against the urging of

people around him. According to Chuck

Dedrich, Cinanon was utopia and leaving

it was a death sentence. But Craig did

it anyway. And with each passing day,

the world of Cinon felt more contrived

and toxic. Ultimately, when graduation

came, the decision to leave was actually

an easy one. In fact, he was desperate

to go. So, against the pressure of

everyone on the inside, he traded Cinon

for college, just in time to witness its

downfall from afar.

By the late 1970s, Chuck's act as if

protocols became harder to follow as his

dogma grew more and more extreme. For

example, some survivors say when Chuck's

doctor told him he needed to lose

weight, Chuck forced everyone else in

the group to go on strict diets, too,

coercing them to participate in

humiliating mass weigh-ins in the nude.

After Chuck's wife passed away from

cancer and he fell in love with someone

new, he demanded that everyone else go

through the same grief process as a

personal growth exercise and he

separated all the married couples in

Cinanon, then assign them new partners.

That was the last straw for Craig's dad

and stepmother, and they finally left

Cinon in 1977. As time went on, Chuck

also became increasingly paranoid about

outsiders. that inspired him to scrap

one of his original cardinal rules, no

violence. He instituted a personal

militia called the Imperial Marines, who

he mandated to physically beat

Splatizes, the traitorous defectors.

This all culminated in one last act of

violence. Chuck instructed his army to

place a rattlesnake in the mailbox of a

lawyer representing Splatizes. The snake

bit the lawyer, landing him in the

hospital, and Chuck Dedrich was

arrested. Though due to declining

health, he never spent any time in jail.

Cinon disbanded shortly thereafter,

though remnants of the game still live

on in online communities and comment

sections. As for my dad, he must have

had one heck of a college essay because

somehow he got into UC Berkeley,

graduated with a degree in bacteriology,

then moved on to UCLA where he earned

his PhD in microbiology. He went on to

marry a fellow research scientist. Hi,

Mom. And eventually became a professor.

[Music]

So Craig got out, but where does that

leave the rest of us? We're living in an

increasingly complex world teeming with

petty problems, overwhelming choices,

fractured communities, and a constant

onslaught of both true and false

information that our brains simply did

not develop to handle. So, our cognitive

biases sometimes tell us to double down

on cultish choices, to stay with that

candidate a little longer, to try a

final month at that culty fitness studio

to buy one more Stanley Cup. Despite

enormous evidence that we should

reconsider, simply put, our once useful

cognitive shortcuts are clashing with

the modern world. As for why my dad

didn't buy into so many of the cultish

strategies that worked on his peers,

well, in part, he had his interest in

science to think for that. This just

goes to show that even in highly

oppressive environments, a hint of

skepticism can point you toward hope.

But short of running a microbiol,

what are the rest of us supposed to do

about this? What can we take away from

my dad's story as people who are exposed

to cultish language every day? Well, I

argue that being manipulated

isn't always bad. Anything can be taken

too far. But as a whole, just because

something is a little cultish doesn't

mean you have to give it up. Because

here's the thing, human beings influence

each other often times in irrational

ways. It's what we do. We're a social

and mystical species. And cultish

language can be a way to mobilize people

for good. Like one of my best friends

works at a cancer nonprofit and she's

recruited me to do some fundraising for

them. This is an objectively good

mission that I believe in. But vying for

research funding is hard and I've

noticed how the mantras and labels used

within this nonprofit to keep people

inspired can be cultish. Someday is

today. You are the greatest generation

of warriors and heroes in this quest for

a cancer cure. Am I being manipulated

when I hear phrases like that? Totally.

But when it's safe, respectful, and easy

to get out of when you've had enough.

Being a little irrational about the

things we love together, well, that's a

core part of being human. We chant at

sports games, cry shouting the same

phrases over and over again until we

really do believe that our team is

unbeatable. We wear special friendship

bracelets to concerts and flash funny

hand signs at each other to show we

belong to communities we love. Is it all

a little mystical? Sure. But that's how

humans are. And admitting that might

just be the key to making the best of

our cultish proclivities without letting

them take over our lives.

I believe that we can strive to preserve

the sanctity of facts without giving up

the fun of ritual or the might of

cultish language. For example, we can

use what we know about the illusory

truth effect to spread real facts.

Pretty fonts, rhyming slogans, and

constant repetition aren't just for cult

leaders. Memory scientist Lisa Fosio

once told me, "Remember, it's okay to

repeat true information. People need

reminders of what's true." Ultimately,

my goal with my writing is to be more

compassionate toward others

irrationalities

and skeptical of my own in this ever

complicated and culty age. I think

that's the best each of us can do. And

with that, I suppose all I can say is

stay curious, stay critical. And dare I

say amen.

Thanks for watching this Crash Course

lecture, which was made with the help of

all of these nice and only slightly

culty people. If you want to help keep

Crash Course free for everyone forever,

you can join our cult on Patreon.

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