‘THEY TARGET VULNERABLE INDIVIDUALS’

Dr Michelle Carr, forensic psychologist and founder of connectioncollective. co.uk, says: ‘Cult leaders target vulnerable individuals. They do this by becoming skilled at reading others and eliciting information which can be used to take advantage of another person.

Despite wide-ranging differences in ideologies and lifestyles, cult leaders can all be deemed narcissistic, charming and charismatic. Cults seem to offer a place for individuals who find they don’t fit into mainstream society, but soon they realise they’re now indebted to those leading the cult.

This creates a binding and unspoken contract. In addition, the individuals will often be exposed to speeches and events where they’ll be preached and spoken to in a forceful, biased and leading fashion, often littered with propaganda, extreme idealism and sometimes prophecies.

The aim of this is to induce buy-in to the cult ideology, more commonly known as “brainwashing”.’