Forced starvation and malnutrition, sleep deprivation, loss of personal freedoms and identity, and the emotional and spiritual assaults that cults leverage to achieve their goals can leave a person with deep emotional and financial scars that will not soon fade. In general, your life is probably not at risk and such a thing would represent a rare and extreme situation. Emotional and financial damage are much more common, as is the risk of losing several years of your life as you focus your attention on a person or group that is unworthy of your talents. You aren't going to become a cult expert as a result of this article, but hopefully it will motivate you to become one. There are an incredible number of variations in the way cults recruit, operate, and seek funding.
Some cults provide housing, some just meet on weekends.
Some want you no matter what, others dump you when you run out of money or will demote you to menial tasks. You might be expecting to be confronted by a horrible looking old man that demands all your money and wants sex. You should realize that cults put on a friendly face and have developed very sophisticated recruiting and member retention methods. Organizations that once used drugs or kidnappings to retain members now find they are even more successful by using financial and legal blackmail, behavior and personality manipulation techniques, or by exploiting spiritual, social, sexual, and emotional needs of the individual. The generalizations made on this page are not intended to be descriptions of the activities undertaken by the organizations listed in our Hot List.