Non-Religious Cults: Danger Hiding in Plain Sight

Who I Am and Why This Matters

Content Warning: This piece discusses child abuse, religious trauma, adoption-related abuse, workplace manipulation, and cult tactics including psychological control, financial abuse, and institutional shunning. If you are currently experiencing these dynamics, please consider reaching out to support resources.

Welcome! This is the introduction to the series I’ll be writing: Non-Religious Cults: Danger Hiding in Plain Sight. I'm Kristina Daniele, educator and author of Civil Rights Then and Now: A Timeline of the Fight for Equality in America. I hold a Master of Science in Teaching, and I love to read. More importantly, I've spent years inside three controlled systems, learning to recognize their tactics. I didn't escape—I woke up.

The systems I left: Organized Christianity, The Institution of Adoption, and Corporate Tech Culture.

This matters because these institutions, amongst others, operate covertly in plain sight. When people hear "cult," they picture religious extremists hiding in compounds. But today's dangerous cults recruit through LinkedIn, parent-teacher meetings, corporate offices, schools, and political events. Targets face the same psychological manipulation tactics used throughout history.

How I Learned to Recognize Modern Cults

I've studied cults for decades as a special interest that grew from reading dystopian fiction like 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale.

Reading God, Harlem U.S.A.: The Father Divine Story by Jill Watts taught me that cult leaders extend far beyond religious zealots.

When an organization affiliated with  L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology, contacted me at the Bronx public school where I worked, offering a reading program* for my students., I read up on the organization. In finding Tony Ortega’s The Underground Bunker, which detailed the seediness of the group, I began to understand the connection between religious cults, social movements, and vulnerable communities.

Together with my lived experiences, these works enabled me to understand the current limitations in how we define "cult." Throughout this series, we'll expand our understanding to combat their growing influence.

Defining Cults Beyond Religion

For now, our working definition comes from the ICSA/UCLA Wingspread Conference on Cultism in 1985**.

Cult (totalist type): A group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g., isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of leaving it…), designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders, to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community. (West & Langone, 1986, pp. 119–120)

Spiritual Abuse Resources. (2023). On using the term "cult". Spiritual Abuse Resources. Archived from the original on September 24, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230924202951/https://www.spiritualabuseresources.com/articles/on-using-the-term-cult

Understanding cults beyond religious stereotypes let me apply this framework to my experiences, revealing systematic manipulation disguised as spiritual guidance.

My Experience in Religious Control Systems

Religious indoctrination for me began early at the age of two while in foster care. We spent entire weekends attending services and an Episcopalian church in Queens, sometimes sleeping there during extended activities. After my adoption, at three, this pattern continued at a Black Presbyterian church in The Bronx. I joined youth choir and Bible Study, learning that questioning God's authority meant risking damnation.

My curiosity has always outweighed my fear. I questioned adults about religion, seeking clarification about their teachings. My mother punished me for these inquiries, calling them "being smart" or "disrespectful." Questioning authority would not be tolerated.

And in ways for which I lacked the language, I recognized a system demanding blind compliance all while practicing devastating hypocrisy, was not safe for me.

For anyone.

The breaking point came when the church's cult control system activated after my mentor Mark died of suspected HIV/AIDS-related complications. The church's "unconditional love" revealed conditions when they refused his funeral, treating his family as contaminated. This institutional shunning calculated to terrorize remaining members into compliance.

The Adoption Industrial Complex

The same dynamics of conditional love and systematic control became my home foundation. I experienced authoritarian control disguised as spiritual justification. The "spare the rod" narrative justified physical beatings for any perceived slight. To maintain power, my mother deployed classic techniques: triangulation to destroy bonds between my biological sisters and me, financial manipulation through withholding basic needs, and isolation and surveillance by monitoring relationships. Eventually, I went No-Contact with my adoptive family.

These experiences with conditional belonging made me vulnerable to corporate environments promising the 'family connection' I'd never had.

Corporate Cult Culture

In 2017, I experienced corporate cult tactics firsthand at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. The grueling weeks-long trial process ended with devastation (rejection) or classic love-bombing (acceptance). Being hired felt like being "chosen." After a lifetime of conditional belonging, the promise of a "forever home" was intoxicating.

The company deployed sophisticated cult retention techniques: constant reinforcement of our "specialness," abundant swag creating identity fusion, mandatory team meetups demanding performative happiness, and leader worship around founder, vision, and creed. Criticism received harsh backlash. Anyone not perpetually "culture-fit" cheerful faced isolation and termination.

I spotted these patterns quickly, though many teammates embraced the "family" narrative. By termination, I'd endured DARVO tactics (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender), making me question reality. Years of therapy revealed how corporate environments use cult psychology while appearing progressive and inclusive.

These three experiences taught me cult tactics aren't confined to fringe religious groups—they're systematic control approaches deployed across mainstream American institutions. The modern Cult of Personality thrives on love-bombing, institutional shunning, financial manipulation, triangulation, and DARVO tactics, creating devoted followers who mistake manipulation for leadership. Information and pattern recognition are our only defenses.

What This Series Will Expose

Once I recognized these patterns in corporate culture, I saw them everywhere. The same psychological manipulation from church, adoption, and tech operates across institutions as a systematic toolkit. Political extremist groups use patriotic branding to hide white supremacist goals. MLM schemes disguise financial exploitation as "business opportunities." Charter schools mask authoritarian control as "closing the achievement gap." Social movements get co-opted to advance regressive agendas.

Over the next weeks, I'll discuss how cult psychology systematically destroys American communities through four areas:

• Political cults using masculinity, patriotism, and conspiracy theories to recruit extremists
• Economic exploitation cults preying on financial desperation through MLMs and "hustle culture"
• Social movement cults co-opting legitimate causes to advance regressive agendas
• Educational cults using "reform" rhetoric to implement authoritarian control

Most importantly, I'll show how nearly all these supposedly secular cults ultimately serve white supremacist goals, supporting racial hierarchy through psychological manipulation rather than explicit violence.

Understanding how these groups recruit and control members isn't academic—it's survival information for protecting democracy.

What You'll Learn

If you've wondered how your neighbor became a conspiracy theorist, your friend got trapped in an MLM, your family member joined an extremist political group, or your local school became authoritarian overnight, this series provides answers.

If you recognize yourself in any of these systems, I'll also provide support resources for getting out.

Notes:

*The link is to a current reading program offered by TCOS, but it may not be the same reading program offered to my students. I do not remember the name of that program, nor do I remember the name of the organization. What I do remember is the impact it had on me and the result of receiving that information.

**There are more recent definitions, and most academic language has moved away from the word cult altogether. We’ll discuss those schools of thought in upcoming posts.

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