Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: The Signs Of A Cult

1) Always Trying To Recruit People When They Think They’re At Their Weakest.

What makes an effective cult work (And we’ll discuss why in a later entry) is the malleability of its members. To get people to dive deep into something that, from the outside, looks so obviously shady, self-serving, or downright warped, to give their money, their time, and their devotion to this idea, cult leader(s) need people who are in such a state that whatever the cult is selling, even if it looks like utter lunacy, seems palatable.

Did you notice how Riley asked Wes, Althea, Alicia, and Luciana about their lost siblings? That wasn’t a coincidence. Even listening to Teddy talk to Alicia about Madison and Nick, you could see, couldn’t you? The Beginners (Or whatever they wind up being called) are trying to use that sense of loss of people’s families as a means of getting them to accept the cult.

You see, cults have always pulled from people who feel lost, broken, abandoned, confused, or alone because such people are, generally, easier to mold into what they want.

I also noticed that most of the cult members that we saw weren’t that old, aside from Teddy himself and maybe Riley. The rest? They all looked no older than Al, maybe mid-30s at the most (Making them probably only in their late-20s when the outbreak hit).

This is important because older people are far more likely to be set in their ways and may be unwilling to comply with the cult in the way they’d want. In contrast, younger people (Especially in a zombie apocalypse, which throws some of their adult development into disarray) may be more willing to accept different ideas…even bad ones.

I’m willing to bet that most of the members of The Beginners were probably people that they found either alone or in very small groups. Additionally, I’m willing to bet that those they found alone, like Derek, were probably people who either had or thought they had lost everyone close to them. Cults make a point of recruiting such people because, in such a state, they’re more emotionally vulnerable and likely in search of someone at that moment to fill the void left by the loss of those closest to them.

In a zombie apocalypse, if you’ve lost your group or someone close to you, beware of any people offering “understanding” or offering to “be the family you need” or something like that because they’re trying to use your loss as a means to suck you into their web. You need to be strong and recognize an attempt to manipulate you. Don’t fall for it.