This article describes many features of cult recruitment

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Haworth, a former cult member, once part of the now non-existent PSI Mind Development Institute, added: “These groups will cash in on anything that’s popular. If people are interested in personal development, and why shouldn’t they be, then they’ll offer that … if people want something that’s going to be invented tomorrow, then they’ll offer that too.”

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Dr Alexandra Stein, a London-based writer and educator specializing in the social psychology of ideological extremism, says she has seen how people are “sucked in” by such courses, which appear to have a “fixed methodology” on getting people involved.

Stein says people go along to their first class intrigued, having been told the course will provide them with tools to help them be a more “effective, efficient, assertive” person.

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Sometimes, corporate workplaces even send employees along after programs sell them package deals.

The courses are often high-intensity, and can run for 10 hours a day for three days in a row, Stein says. Participants often leave having experienced ‘collective effervescence’ – a sense of community and shared experiences.

Stein says some of the training courses have ‘plants’ sitting in on them – people who have already done the course and who are ready to vouch for “how much it has changed their lives.” At the end of a course, participants are likely to be upsold a new course to reach the next ‘level’ of personal development.

“You have all these levels that cost money and take time, but most of all they start engulfing you in the system, and you have to keep going,” Stein says.

“It’s seductive. Not everyone, but quite a few people that have money in situational moments in their lives where they may be at a bit of a loose end, it’s very easy for people to get sucked in. You know, a few years later they wake up and say, ‘oops, I spent my life savings.’”

Stein was part of a cult in the 1980s – a secretive left wing political group called ‘O.’ For 10 years, it deprived her of all personal freedom, alienated her from friends and family and even told her who to have children with.

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She urges anyone thinking of joining any group – from yoga to karate – to do an internet search to find out other people’s experiences of it.

Stein has formulated a five-point definition of what a ‘cult’ is for people to consider before joining any group.

Cults are started by a leader. That leader must have charisma in order to pull people in, and are also authoritarian.

The structure of cults is very closed, hierarchal and isolating.

Its ideology is presented as the only way to explain the universe.

A process of “brainwashing” or “coercive persuasion” is used.

During this process, leaders set up an environment where the only perceived safe space is the group.

As a result of the structure and ideology, members become highly dependent on the group, and are exploitable and controllable.

Education and Intelligence No Protection

Stein says the stereotype that “needy, vulnerable” people are the ones recruited to cults is incorrect. “In a lot of cults you’ll find intelligent, educated people. These are not poor, miserable, oppressed people. A lot of them are highly educated. Education and intelligence are not protected.”