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

4) Blind Loyalty From Its Members.

At the beginning of all of this, I talked about how cults go after people when they believe they’re at their weakest point. The reason they do this? They hope that, by getting potential members at such a state, they can earn not just that person’s loyalty but also their blind loyalty.

If you ever want to know if someone’s in a cult, watch them or listen to them. Give them enough time, and the cultist will inevitably discuss whatever their cult happens to be focused on, whatever it is they think needs fixing or removing or replacing. If the zeal with which they talk about this thing isn’t enough to convince you, disagree with them about it, not argue, and watch/listen to the response.

You will very likely get a response that is, at best, condescending, at worse, utterly venomous, as they explain how wrong you are and extol the virtues of whatever it is their cult believes in, with absolute certainty.

Now, a person being certain about something isn’t inherently bad. Still, even if you know that what they’re saying is completely wrong (Like, that a perfect society is possible, for example), they will preach it as if they were telling you something as irrefutable as 1 + 1 = 2.

Furthermore, look at how they talk about people with who they disagree. Even if the other person disagrees on something either totally subjective or has motives for disagreeing that are perfectly normal, the cultist always assumes that the person must be disagreeing because (For all intents and purposes) they’re the embodiment of evil.

THIS is what I mean by “blind loyalty.” The cultists have become so convinced of their righteousness or that of their leader(s) that the idea of someone questioning or challenging them is met with extreme, irrational hate. Even if you approach trying to get them to see what the cult really is from a place of patience and understanding, they will find the very idea of questioning the cult’s philosophy or actions as some kind of attack or grievous insult, especially if you have the means of backing that questioning up.

To break someone of such…conditioning (For lack of a better term), evidence is what you’ll need. If you can’t put the metaphorical “smoking gun” in the leader(s) or cult’s hands, the cultist will see your attempt to reach them as lies and only dig in harder. As we saw with Wes’s brother Derek in this week’s Fear The Walking Dead, even having evidence may not be enough.

Part of the reason for this is that cults also need to isolate prospective members from anyone who may get them to question the cult or its leader(s). It’s a classic tactic of abusers and manipulators; they seek to separate the person they want to control from any potential support network who may recognize the isolating behavior for what it is (This is why you’ll see cults tell members to cut off family or friends who don’t share the cult’s beliefs).

If you know or see someone you care about in the zombie apocalypse displaying these traits, you have to do whatever you can to get them away from the cult or prevent them from falling in with them in the first place, because if you don’t make the effort, you may never be able to get them back.