Yup. I lived in a residential cult, in Sweden, for three months last year (unintentionally, but no one intends to move into a cult), and I can confirm, 100%, that this is a tactic that they use...
Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for me, I kept leaving. I left every weekend, and every chance I got, to go out and explore the wider world, meet people, have conversations, etc. So I very quickly realized that these people were insane. And so I left.
The others there, who didn't have that same experience of "going outside", regularly, stayed, shunned me, got really, really nasty when I told them I was leaving, and then got duped into giving the cult more money...
A cult which already starves and overworks "participants", and which pulls money from donors and the government, in addition to what we ourselves paid.
It was a very eye-opening experience, I will admit.
And that particular one has been going for 16 years, plus it's not even the only one in that same town, so...
That's a more extreme example of the phenom, obviously, but yeah, this is definitely a thing, in my experience...
Yup. I lived in a residential cult, in Sweden, for three months last year (unintentionally, but no one intends to move into a cult), and I can confirm, 100%, that this is a tactic that they use...
Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for me, I kept leaving. I left every weekend, and every chance I got, to go out and explore the wider world, meet people, have conversations, etc. So I very quickly realized that these people were insane. And so I left.
The others there, who didn't have that same experience of "going outside", regularly, stayed, shunned me, got really, really nasty when I told them I was leaving, and then got duped into giving the cult more money...
A cult which already starves and overworks "participants", and which pulls money from donors and the government, in addition to what we ourselves paid.
It was a very eye-opening experience, I will admit.
And that particular one has been going for 16 years, plus it's not even the only one in that same town, so...
That's a more extreme example of the phenom, obviously, but yeah, this is definitely a thing, in my experience...
Recognizing how the extreme works helps when you see the tactics in more subtle ways.