This is a bit of a weird book to read, given that it’s on the academic side and it’s about attachment relationships and cults, but I think by now you know I read weird books.

Written by a former cult member, Terror, Love & Brainwashing looks at how totalist groups operate and how attachment theory, specifically disorganised attachment, is created and used to control members of the group. Although this book draws heavily on academic research, the book was written to be accessible to the general public. So even though it retains some of the formality of academia, it’s still very readable.

First, a definition. In this book, cults are defined as:

“a group of people led and generally exploited by a charismatic and authoritarian leader, who hold an extreme (totalist) set of views.”

As you can see, cults don’t have to be religious, in fact, the author was previously in a non-religious cult. But through the stories of many ex-cult members, Stein systematically looks at how cults work and how people join. It is worrying to know that there’s not one particular type of person who is susceptible to cults – all of us may be, in the right conditions.

Something that I learnt in this book is that cults operate by isolating the members even from each other. While the group may appear tight-knit from the outside, members are not encouraged to, and in some cases are disciplined for, forming actual bonds with one another. This is because having a secure attachment with someone else can help weaken the disorganised attachment that the members have to the cult leader, thus making it possible for them to leave.

If you’re not familiar with attachment theory, disorganised attachment occurs when a person is in a situation of fright without solution. The cult is at once both the source of threat and the haven from the threat. Thus, cult indoctrination starts with isolating someone (thus severing any secure bonds) and positioning themselves as the safe haven while using fear to shut down their ability to think about the cult. This actually persists even after someone has left – interviews conducted by Stein show that ex-cult members are unable to talk about the events during the cult in past tense or are unable to articulate their experience as memories are not metabolised or processed so that there is a conscious and subjective experience of remembering. These people seem to go back to experiencing life within the cult in the present moment; that is how devastating its influence is even on those who have left.

This book might actually pair well with Cultish by Amanda Montell which looks at language as a form of control in cults or cult-like organisations. Terror, Love & Brainwashing also has a chapter on language, but I think reading both books can help us to understand better how cults work from different angles.

As Stein mentions in the last chapter, knowing how cults work can help with formulating a prevention plan to prevent them from recruiting and destroying the lives of their members. In that vein, I would say that Terror, Love & Brainwashing is a book that we should all read, because we never know if our loved ones will encounter a cult or cult-ish organisations. And know how they work will help us to better engage with our loved ones and perhaps help them leave (or prevent them from fully joining) a cult.

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