Cult Quotes

“The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

“Some of the smartest people there were also the most committed. Intelligence doesn’t make you less prone to taking on bad ideas, it just makes you better at defending them to other people and to yourself. Smart people can believe some truly ridiculous things, and then deploy all the reason and logic at their disposal to justify them, because a belief doesn’t begin in your mind. It begins in your feelings.”
― Jonathan Sims, The Magnus Archives: Season 4

“Any bad Ideas, needs a fool to implement it.”
― De philosopher DJ Kyos

“These hapless lovers were probably not always mere myths, and these legends which traced their spilt blood in the purple bloom of the violet, the scarlet stain of the anemone, or the crimson flush or the rose were no idle poetic emblem of youth and beauty fleeting as the Summer flowers.”
― James George Frazer, The Golden Bough A Study in Magic and Religion: Volume VIII or XII

“Evil Tinkerbell has come to kill me because I didn't clap. I'm a bad person and I deserve to die.”
― Derek Milman, Swipe Right for Murder

“Loading the language is the mind-numbing process by which ‘the most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive- sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed’, whose aim is to shut down independent thinking.”
― Kathleen Taylor, Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control

“Human beings have been trying to change each others' minds since they first discovered they had them.”
― Kathleen Taylor, Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control

“Sometimes, Bea thinks heaven is here and now but when Lev talks like this, she knows she's wrong. If today is ecstasy, tomorrow will be a greater bliss. Lev will lead them into that tomorrow.”
― Courtney Summers, The Project

“It has often been said that the most common idols in the West are Power, Sex, and Money; with this I am not in any profound disagreement. However, inasmuch as these idols are connected to a larger vision of life, such as the American dream, or the inalienable rights of free people, they become part of a nation’s civil religion. I would contend, in fact, that the most alluring and dangerous deity in the United States is the omnipresent, syncretistic god of nationalism mixed with Christianity lite: religious beliefs, language, and practices that are superficially Christian but infused with national myths and habits. Sadly, most of this civil religion’s practitioners belong to Christian churches, which is precisely why Revelation is addressed to the seven churches (not to Babylon), to all Christians tempted by the civil cult.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb into the New Creation

“Cults are very good at finding you when you’re at your lowest point, when you’re your most emotionally vulnerable. And when you’re at that point it’s astounding what can crawl into your heart and start to fester there.”
― Jonathan Sims, The Magnus Archives: Season 4

“Everyone thinks they’re too smart to get involved in a cult. I’m sure you do.
You think that, of the first mention of aliens, or the end of the world, or the lost book of the Bible where Jesus buried his holy staff in the foothills of the Himalayas, you’d go running.
Trouble is, that misunderstands how it works”
― Jonathan Sims, The Magnus Archives: Season 4

“People in a cult don't know they're in a cult. But everyone else can tell.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, Inside The Mind of an Introvert

“If you are being approached, called, selected or invited to join these group of people who are trying to destroying the country. They didn’t call you , because of your bravery or that your special, but they called you , because of your stupidity. They know you are foolish enough in believing any garbage they feed you. You are not smart enough to know what is right and what is wrong. Any bad idea, needs a fool to implement it. In this case you are that fool.”
― De philosopher DJ Kyos

“Milieu control is the attempt to dominate ‘not only the individual’s communication with the outside (all that he sees and hears, reads and writes, experiences, and expresses), but also—in its penetration of his inner life—over what we may speak of as his communication with himself”
― Kathleen Taylor, Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control

“Although it is arguable that the major world religions began as cults, most have become so institutionalized that they have lost many of their cultic features.”
― Kathleen Taylor, Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control

“There are some phenomena commonly found in both cults and religions (at least in their early days). These include a strict differentiation of leader and followers; rebellion against established authority; paranoia as the new movement seeks to establish itself; simplistic, dualistic thinking [...] (good/evil, believer/heretic, saved/damned); and a tendency towards utopian thinking.”
― Kathleen Taylor, Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control

“First find the one inside you which is already desireless. Then your body-mind will also become desireless. Doing the reverse is not possible. You can't first make your body-mind desireless and then find the one which is already desireless. The sages of preached the reverse ended up creating cults, sects, and religions.”
― Shunya

“First find the one inside you which is already desireless. Then your body-mind will also become desireless. Doing the reverse is not possible. You can't first make your body-mind desireless and then find the one which is already desireless. The sages who preached the reverse ended up creating cults, sects, and religions.”
― Shunya

“Have you seen the burned man?”
― J.R. Potts, Visitor on The Mountain

“A person studies science for 20 years. All concepts stay in his outer mind. Then he goes to a preacher for 1 year. He turns into a fanatic. Why? Because half baked things easily get into subconscious mind and then into dreams. And we have a tendency to believe dreams to be the certificate from divine authorities.”
― Shunya

“When a Guru points His finger towards the truth, His disciples try to look at the truth. But His crazy fans remain fixed to the finger and say, 'How glorious is this finger! How glorious must be the truth this glorious finger is pointing towards! I will look at the truth one day but right now let me sing glories of this finger.”
― Shunya

“Understand, spiritually or scientifically, that everything is One Whole. Live life accordingly. Treat people so, with this metaphysical truth. Get it that all is One. And you're done. Thus is Supreme Reality. All else is mind-made crap. Is simplistic mythology. And a cult.”
― Fakeer Ishavardas

“Lost children of the universe feel lonely and purposeless. So they join groups and cults that give them a sense of belonging and purpose. A seeker must walk alone!”
― Shunya

“So we moved away from the myth of the man on the white horse, the individual who was going to ride into our troubled town and solve all our problems.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, A Pause in the Perpetual Rotation

“Although force is often used, it is not essential. Many cults woo their victims with love, rather than brutality.”
― Kathleen Taylor, Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control

“You have to decide whether you want the truth or sense of belongingness. If you want truth, you have to be alone and dive into yourself no matter how scary it feels. If you want sense of belongingness, it doesn't matter from where you get it: a spiritual group or a kitty group or fan group of a celebrity.”
― Shunya

“Cult followers typically consider their leaders divine or, at least, mandated by some supreme authority (God, fate, the forces of history, or whatever ethereal idea fits their particular world view) to change the universe.”
― Kathleen Taylor, Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control

“Many followers tend to join in their teens or early twenties, when they are still unformed adults—individuals not yet fully at ease in their own skins, seeking a sense of identity and security which the cult is able to provide.”
― Kathleen Taylor, Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control

“Yes! He stole my dog! And he almost killed us! This is the guy you're protecting! This is teh guy you think is going to save the world by turning you into lightbulbs! Can't you see he's got you totally brainwashed?!”
― G. Willow Wilson, Ms. Marvel, Vol. 2: Generation Why

“Truth never penetrates the cultists and tribal mind as the group worship of the charismatic idol, provides meaning to an empty life.”
― RJ Intindola – (Gandolfo) – 2017