Some magical groups are little more than cults dressed up with rituals and secrecy. Vulnerable people are often drawn in, only to find themselves ensnared in manipulation and control.
If you believe you are too intelligent to fall for cult like behaviour, congratulations, you are precisely the sort of person who ends up in a cult. The Solar Temple cult, for example, was full of highly intelligent people who their leader nevertheless convinced to kill themselves to board a spaceship.
If your group ticks the following boxes, it’s time to leg it.
They recruit vulnerable individuals (who are often unaware of their vulnerability)
Group recruiters often target psychologically vulnerable individuals, offering a sense of identity, belonging, and stability. They emphasise the concept of being a family, providing the sort of stability that a person may have lacked growing up. This is hard to spot because cult-like orders spend a lot of time trying to get to know their marks so they know which sore spots to press. To the victims, this comes across as “being interested”, which is something they crave. People inside the group suddenly notice that the newcomers are a bit flaky, unaware that they have been selected because they can be controlled.
Love bombing
At the start, new members are smothered with affection, attention, and constant talk of “community” and “love.” Once someone is hooked, the flattery stops and his replaced by coercion. Because such groups play on vulnerable people (see point one), the group members become addicted to this love bombing and want it to continue. As a result, they end up doing anything for the leadership.
Social isolation
Fresh recruits are loaded with endless activities and rituals designed to consume all their free time. Mentors discourage outside relationships until the magical group becomes the only social circle. These do not have to be actual group meetings, but a requirement to do daily practices, often with the threat that the “spirits will be angry” if they are not carried out. The goal is not magical, but rather to prevent the member from coming into contact with others and to keep them at home.
Mind control and programming
With relentless meetings, indoctrination, and pressure, members find themselves mentally rewired. Daily life becomes dictated by the group’s rules and expectations. Most groups where this is played out use a mixture of threats (often of expulsion) and praise. It can play out with threats of violence (particularly against women) if the leadership lacks “good control” abilities. One of the best mind control techniques involves creating an imaginary threat against the group or its leadership. It consists in claiming that the group is being magically attacked (or undermined in other ways). This unifies the group around the leadership and assists in the isolation process. It becomes “us” against “them.”
Claims of being the only true magical group
A major red flag is when leaders insist that theirs is the one authentic path, dismissing all other traditions as false or corrupt. This can become very narrow, claiming that the group is the only one which had the “true lineage” from the source. This was important during the Golden Dawn wars. The more cult-like elements in these wars claimed to have a “true lineage” to the Golden Dawn or its successors, thereby lending authenticity and uniqueness to their claims.
Distorted history
Cult-like orders rewrite magical history, rejecting established traditions and inventing a backstory that positions their movement as the sole heirs of ancient wisdom. This makes them appear unique and gives their followers something to believe in. This protects the leadership when an accurate historical premise is presented to group members. For example, a group might be told that its leadership speaks to the same Secret Chiefs who contacted Samual Mathers. They might quote a letter from Mather discussing his meeting with these secret chiefs. They might then say that these secret chiefs are real people who communicate with us. However, a close read of the letter that Mathers wrote shows that he was having a visionary contact with his secret chiefs, and they were not real people. More often, they might distort their own group’s history by attempting to make it appear older than it is, or had more important members. This is not in itself a sign of cult activity, just an indication that leaders are prepared to lie to members.
False doctrine
Doctrines are twisted to suit the group’s agenda, whether redefining spiritual entities, misrepresenting rituals, or imposing bizarre rules on members in the name of “truth.” The key here is that the doctrine is designed to trap members within a closed belief system, where only the group’s version of reality is considered valid. A closed system is impossible to challenge because the leaders can make it up as they go along. Anyone who questions it is branded weak, unspiritual, or even cursed.
For example, you could set up a Wiccan or Voodoo group based on a Western perspective on those teachings. You could then take all the bits you understand, or that are culturally acceptable, and build a system around them. No one would ever know that you are making it up, and they will follow blindly.
A similar phenomenon occurred with the Golden Dawn, whose teachings were extensively published by Israel Regardie in the 1930s. This meant that cult leaders had a good basic manual on which to base their group without appearing idiotic. They then transformed this into a closed system, claiming to have the original teachings from Samuel Mather’s Alpha et Omega order. At the time, no one had those rituals (which were believed to be destroyed), so no one could check. When I published the AO rituals in my books King of the Water and Mather’s Last Secret, those walls were destroyed. As a result, I was subjected to cult attacks from these orders.
Idolising the leader
The leader is elevated to near-mythical status, treated as a prophet, saint, or untouchable visionary. Their word is law with no questions asked. This is unfortunate because some Eastern systems make this a feature, which often confuses Westerners who do not understand how these systems work. However, once a group sycophantically idolises the leader, they automatically give them too much power. The next stage toward cult is for the leader to insist that all spiritual experiences be discussed with them and with no one else. The next move will be a refusal to answer questions.
Ex-members report trauma
It used to be that when people left a group, the leadership would send out letters to their followers to warn them and to get their story out first. This meant that even if a person told anyone, they would not be believed. The leader of a high-profile organisation was doing well by harvesting women who were having, or on the verge of, breakdowns, by offering to be a father figure for them. That worked for him until the Internet arrived, and suddenly all these victims started talking to each other. The Order went into a tailspin from which it took years to recover.
Sometimes ex-members are threatened, either physically or with curses, to stay quiet, so if they appear online to say anything, it is a sign of bravery.
It is therefore a good idea to read social media and testimonies of former members describing abuse, coercion, isolation, and psychological damage. You don’t have to believe the victim (if you are too highly programmed), but it should send you a red flag if people are saying the same thing.
Lack of financial transparency
Donations vanish into a black hole. Budgets, membership numbers, and leadership structures are hidden. The faithful are told to give more without ever seeing where the money goes. Sometimes, the leadership claims that the cash is being donated to charities, but there is no evidence to suggest that the money actually reaches those charities. It can be hard to do your own police work if this is the case, particularly if the money is supposed to be in overseas children’s charities.
Another important connected issue is when a group starts to demand a lot of money for the most basic things. Hugely expensive workshops, retreats, pricey initiations, and gifts “to the gods,” which often end up being left at the leader’s house, fit into this category. It should not cost too much money to belong to an occult order, even if you have to pay rent or upkeep on a building.
The leadership orders you to carry out magical or physical attacks on another person, an ex-member or another group.
Magical cults often want their members to act as enforcers for the leadership. If they wish to make magical attacks against others, it is usually because they want the group to focus on an external enemy (as we said above). Most occult leaders who call for these sorts of attacks don’t believe in magic (it is a psychological group control effort) or are so full of their own self-importance that they think they have a right to carry out the magic attack. Either way, this is a huge red flag. More dangerous is when a group leader insists on internet or physical attacks on an enemy. This has the advantage of turning the group into a criminal gang with similar rules and instilling fear in the group’s enemies.
The leader starts to display bad behaviour.
As we mentioned above, a leader can end up believing their own bullshit and thinking they are a God or Goddess. They will start to see the group as an extension of themselves. It brings out any latent narcissism but will quickly move to threats of violence. In addition, they will start selecting several romantic partners to be their special priest or priestesses. The only issue is that these individuals lack experience, and their role appears to be primarily serving the ego of an increasingly autocratic chief. At this point, the least organised members of the group will stop attending (which is another sign to look for).
If you want to do a detailed evaluation on your group and see if it is a cult fill in the following questionnaire
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