People who have seen friends and family members get involved with cults often assume that their loved one has been brainwashed. Brainwashing, when mentioned by cult opponents, is often misunderstood, not only in how it works, but in its actual effectiveness. People assume that just because an individual changes their apparent focus or loyalties resulting in perceived changed behavior then there must be some malign influence causing this abrupt break. The truth is that for most people a cult, at least in the early stages is offering the recruit something that they want. They see the cult as a positive in their life. This becomes something that the cult can use to retain members. The new recruit sees what they believe are the obvious positives of cult membership while family and friends, believing that they see something that the new cult recruit doesn't, invests a lot of time and energy trying to convince their son, daughter, or friend of the dangers of being involved, even suggesting that brainwashing is involved. This is bound to cause resentment and inevitably, a rift. In many cases the well-meaning family and friends don't really have a clear idea about why the cult is a cult, other than a vague suspicion of "the other". The cult plays up this rift, often predicting that it would happen as evidence that they're on the right path. Christian-derived cults point to similar statements by Jesus in the Gospels to "prove" that separating from one's family and "the world" is the way to godliness. You see this in politics as well, with the MAGA cultists often able to point to the opposition by "the Left" as evidence that they're right.
In extreme cases, family members engaged in deprogramming. I don't know if this happens these days, but it was quite common in the seventies and eighties. My own parents, according to one of my siblings, consulted a deprogrammer while I was part of a Way program in Western Nebraska. The deprogrammer himself cautioned them that if it didn't take, they would lose me completely.
I was aware of several attempts to deprogram people when I was in The Way, some successful, some not. Typically a deprogramming would begin with an invitation for the cult member to meet with parents for an innocuous reason, like a birthday or anniversary. The cult member would be told to meet his family at a hotel or at an out of the way location. Instead of his family he would be greeted by professional deprogrammers who would hold him against his will, often physically restraining him. The specific methods would vary, but the deprogrammee would be subject to non-stop attacks on his cult beliefs, his cult leader and his cult friends. Techniques like sleep deprivation would be employed. Most of these deprogramming attempts sounded more like brainwashing than what the cults did. It shouldn't strain the imagination to see how an unsuccessful deprogramming attempt would do more damage to the familial relationship than would staying in the cult. The existence of frequent deprogramming attempts, as well as societal anti-cult hysteria, served only to solidify an us against them mindset that cult leaders jumped on to justify continued membership. You must be involved in something good if "the world" is against you.
As I stated at the outset of this article, at least initially, in most cults, there's nothing obviously bad happening. On the contrary, nobody joins an evil, controlling, abusive cult. They join groups that provide something that they value. Any problems are either not visible, or are ignored. It's only later that they realize that they did in fact join an evil, controlling, abusive cult. Most people, if they stick around through the honeymoon period, are in it for the long haul. This is true, not only of cults, but, for example, many jobs. At my current job, it's often said that if you make it to five years, you're a lifer. We have a lot of turnover among new people, but there's also many people who have been there for 30, 35 or 40 years. Cult leaders know this and typically refrain from coming down too heavy on new recruits so as not to drive them off before they have internalized the perceived benefits. While a new recruit is basking in whatever perceived benefits are accruing, the cult is also busy hammering home the message that what the cult has, nobody else can offer. For me it was the claim of Biblical accuracy. I was won over initially because I desperately wanted, not just to believe, but to know. The Way did a good job of convincing me that they were the only ones that were interpreting the Bible correctly - which was important to me. Once I was convinced of that, I was hooked.
Once a cult member is hooked, convinced of the correctness and importance of the cult's central claims, a species of the sunk cost fallacy helps keep the momentum going (or inertia if you prefer). In economics "sunk cost" is the money or time that you spent that, no matter what else happens, you're not going to get back. The sunk cost fallacy comes into play when an individual uses the fact of those irretrievable expenditures as a rationale for continuing to expend time or money on the initial investment. For example, you buy a used car for $5000. You soon realize that it's a lemon and spend $1000 one month, $450 the next, and another $800 later on to repair its many problems with no end in sight. The sunk cost fallacy tells you that you've already spent so much on this bomb that you will have wasted all that money if you sell it now for $2000. The victim of this fallacy doesn't consider that she may yet spend much more to repair the car and that taking $2000, even if it's technically a loss, would put $2000 in the bank and save untold future dollars. She is focused on the money that she will never get back, rather than preventing future expenses.
Cult members often think like this, after a number of years they may notice problems - abuses and control issues - any number of red flags, but wave them off because they think that all the the time invested in the cult would be wasted, and even worse, their family who warned them that they were getting into a cult, would be able to say "I told you so". Pride is a powerful thing. Cult leaders hardly have to do anything to encourage this thinking. It's so intrinsic to human behavior that they just have to sit back and watch it unfold.
Even when the red flags get too numerous to ignore, many cult members still hold on, balancing in their minds the perceived benefits against the abuses. This is similar to the dynamic that you see in an abusive relationship. The abused spouse often sticks with the partner who physically and mentally abuses, forgiving and repeatedly returning to the abuse. There's many reasons for this, but it comes down to a calculus where the bad and the good are put on a metaphorical scale and the good is imagined to outweigh the bad. This may seem insane and incomprehensible to an outsider, but it's a fact of human nature. A more prosaic example involves employment. How many of us continue in jobs that we hate? I would guess quite a few. Why would that be? The money outweighs the sexually harassing boss; the flexibility outweighs the long commute, could be any number of things, but it's math that we do every day with all aspects of our lives: we tally up the positive and the negative; if we decide that the positive carries more weight than the negative - even by a tiny bit - we stay with it. Cult involvement is no different. It only looks crazy to someone who hasn't been in the midst of it (but is in the midst of their own craziness.
In short, cult retention of members isn't something magical; it doesn't involve brainwashing or blackmail, it's just a simple understanding of how people think and feel.
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