Cults Quotes

“Professor Langdon,' called a young man with curly hair in the back row, 'if Masonry is not a secret society, not a corporation, and not a religion, then what is it?'
'Well, if you were to ask a Mason, he would offer the following definition: Masonry is a system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.'
'Sounds to me like a euphemism for "freaky cult." '
'Freaky, you say?'
'Hell yes!' the kid said, standing up. 'I heard what they do inside those secret buildings! Weird candlelight rituals with coffins, and nooses, and drinking wine out of skulls. Now that's freaky!'
Langdon scanned the class. 'Does that sound freaky to anyone else?'
'Yes!' they all chimed in.
Langdon feigned a sad sigh. 'Too bad. If that's too freaky for you, then I know you'll never want to join my cult.'
Silence settled over the room. The student from the Women's Center looked uneasy. 'You're in a cult?'
Langdon nodded and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. 'Don't tell anyone, but on the pagan day of the sun god Ra, I kneel at the foot of an ancient instrument of torture and consume ritualistic symbols of blood and flesh.'
The class looked horrified.
Langdon shrugged. 'And if any of you care to join me, come to the Harvard chapel on Sunday, kneel beneath the crucifix, and take Holy Communion.'
The classroom remained silent.
Langdon winked. 'Open your minds, my friends. We all fear what we do not understand.”
― Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol

“As hatred is defined as intense dislike, what is wrong with inciting intense dislike of a religion, if the activities or teachings of that religion are so outrageous, irrational or abusive of human rights that they deserve to be intensely disliked?”
― Rowan Atkinson

“Don't tell anyone, but on the pagan day of the sun god Ra, I kneel at the foot of an ancient instrument of torture and consume ritualistic symbols of blood and flesh. ...And if any of you care to join me, come to the Harvard chapel on Sunday, kneel beneath the crucifix, and take Holy Communion.”
― Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol

“In sum, doubling is the psychological means by which one invokes the evil potential of the self. That evil is neither inherent in the self nor foreign to it. To live out the doubling and call forth the evil is a moral choice for which one is responsible, whatever the level of consciousness involved.”
― Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'Brainwashing' in China

“Scientology always has been a game of power and control. L. Ron Hubbard was the ultimate con man, and it's hard to figure out how much of Scientology was an experiment in brainwashing and controlling people, and how much of it was truly intended to help people.”
― Jenna Miscavige Hill, Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

“[Cult] members learn a new vocabulary that is designed to constrict their thinking into absolute, black-and-white, thought-stopping clichés that conform to group ideology. (“Lock her up” and “Build the Wall” are Trumpian examples. Even his put-downs and nicknames—Crooked Hillary, Pocahontas for Elizabeth Warren—function to block other thoughts. Terms like “deep state” and “globalist” also act as triggers. They rouse emotion and direct attention.)”
― Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control

“Abuse is a more effective form of captivity than a cell will ever be.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

“Obviously, there must be some connection between the subordination of actual individuals and the grotesque exaltation of symbolic ones like Kim Il Sung.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“I was hungry when I left Pyongyang. I wasn't hungry just for a bookshop that sold books that weren't about Fat Man and Little Boy. I wasn't ravenous just for a newspaper that had no pictures of F.M. and L.B. I wasn't starving just for a TV program or a piece of music or theater or cinema that wasn't cultist and hero-worshiping. I was hungry. I got off the North Korean plane in Shenyang, one of the provincial capitals of Manchuria, and the airport buffet looked like a cornucopia. I fell on the food, only to find that I couldn't do it justice, because my stomach had shrunk. And as a foreign tourist in North Korea, under the care of vigilant minders who wanted me to see only the best, I had enjoyed the finest fare available.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays

“How can I get you out of hell? I can’t, I am one of the mistresses of hell, but hell has its corners, and we can rule there, rule and disobey.”
― Mariana Enríquez, Our Share of Night

“Among [Applewhite's] other teachings was the classic cult specialty of developing disdain for anyone outside of the Heaven's Gate commune. Applewhite flattered his would-be alien flock that they were an elite elect far superior to the non-initiated humans whom he considered to be deluded zombies.[...]Applewhite effectively fed his paranoid persecution complex to his followers to ensure blind loyalty to the group and himself while fostering alienation from the mundane world. This paradoxical superior/fearful attitude towards “Them” (i.e., anyone who is not one of “Us”) is one of the simplest means of hooking even the most skeptical curiosity seeker into the solipsistic netherworld of a [mentally unbalanced] leader's insecure and threatened worldview.”
― Zeena Schreck, Straight to Hell: 20th Century Suicides

“For her, it was always a kind of curse to have such an untrustworthy oracle. I believe in the Darkness. How could I not, when it’s my body? When it’s my body that it enters? But to believe is not always to obey. The things the Darkness tells them cannot be interpreted on this plane. The Darkness is demented, it’s a savage god, a mad god.”
― Mariana Enríquez, Our Share of Night

“Cult is one letter away from cunt.”
― Jack Freestone

“MAGA dumbfucks don't care that Trump lies 24/7 because his lies make them feel good.

They WANT to believe his lies.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, American Fascism: A German Writer's Urgent Warning To America

“When we're so caught up in a culture of consumerism [and that is precisely what network marketing is, consumption as a cult] images of people smiling in cars, happy homes and holidays, triggers deep feelings of insecurity.”
― Nick van der Leek, Two Face: The man underneath Christopher Watts

“It’s always the other guy’s religion that’s a sect, isn’t it?”
― Yuri Herrera, The Transmigration of Bodies

“I would rather have a set of questions that we haven't found the answers for, yet, than having a whole set of answers that I'm not even permitted to challenge, questions, dig in on.”
― Dr. Phil McGraw

“By following which if self-realization or oneness of all that is or love for all is not the end result, then, my friend, you're following a damn cult.”
― Fakeer Ishavardas

“Ghana was a thoroughly triumphal visit for Malcolm X, with exception of one sour event: As Malcolm was departing from his hotel on the way to the airport, he bumped into Muhammad Ali, who was touring West Africa, and Ali snubbed him. Later Ali eagerly expressed his unconditional loyalty to Elijah Muhammad, ridiculing Malcolm to a New York Times correspondent and laughing at the “funny white robe” his onetime friend wore and his newly grown beard. “Man, he’s gone. He’s gone so far out he’s out completely.” With words he would later regret, the boxer added, “Nobody listens to that Malcolm anymore.”
― Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention

“Most NYPD officers generally treated Malcolm X's murder case not as a significant political assassination, but as a neighborhood shooting in the dark ghetto, a casualty from two rival black gangs feuding against each other.”
― Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention

“It had often struck Facecream how cults, whether of a political or religious nature, always preached equality and happiness while fostering fear. It had been the same with the Maoists, who relied so heavily on women and children to fill their ranks. Party propaganda spoke endlessly about the Communist ideal of equality, while hierarchy maintained strict discipline and unquestioning allegiance.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

“Your design is not to pledge to cultism, but to plague cultism”
― ROLAND OTU NKRAH, CHILDREN UNDER LIFE'S TORMENT: CULT: THE IGNORANCE OF A MAN IS THE SEATING THRONE OF THE DEVIL TO RULE OVER HIM WITH AUTHORITY

“Satanic ritual abuse (SRA) or ritual abuse may be defined as a method of control over people of all ages consisting of physical, sexual, and psychological mistreatment through the use of rituals, with or without satanic meaning or overtones. Perpetrators of SRA may utilize satanic rituals as part of their belief system and/or to facilitate the control and mistreatment of their victims.”
― Irving B. Weiner, The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology, Volume 4

“Some people gather collateral. Others gather evidence. Collateral is intended to harm, shame and intimidate. Evidence is used to defend. Cults gather collateral. Collateral gathering is harmful.”
― Vennie Kocsis

“People desperate for belonging and validation become prime targets for cults. Don’t show recruiters your low self-worth. Protect your neck by knowing your own value.”
― Vennie Kocsis

“If people blame themselves, they turn away from the real flaws in the system.”
― Emily Lynn Paulson, Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing

“Clearly, the lies we tell ourselves can be considered true if we believe them.”
― Pamela Nickel Williams, Clearly Lies Are True

“I am not the first person to point out the similarities between Jones and Trump, but I highlight their overlapping oratories more as an invitation to consider the precise language forms that contributed to Trump's deceptive and violent charisma. Not to drum up fear that the man is capable of orchestrating a mass poisoning in Guiana. I doubt Trump could even name which continent Guiana is on.”
― Amanda Montell, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

“It's a fucking cult, Paul."
"So is the Catholic Church.”
― Courtney Summers, The Project

“When you give doomsday or other fearmongering cults your attention, just your attention, simply by listening to their words, and certainly by subscribing to them, sending them likes, shares, follows and even money, you’re offering up your precious power in promotion of Doomsday.”
― Sol Luckman, Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality