Sarah Steel - Do As I Say: How Cults Control, Why We Join Them, and What They Teach Us About Bullying, Abuse and Coercion

About Do As I Say

At the heart of being human is the desire to belong. It can make us unspeakably vulnerable to the manipulations of others. Cult leaders prey on this desire, but so do many unscrupulous operators hiding in plain sight.

Sarah Steel, the creator of the popular Lets Talk About Sects podcast, has researched the cults youve heard of and dozens you havent. What strikes her most are not the differences between bizarre cult behaviour and normal behaviour but the depressing similarities. Her work reveals that we are all susceptible to the power of cult dynamics.

In Do As I Say, Sarah Steel tells the human tale behind the sensationalism. Sharing deeply personal stories, gathered over years of interviews with survivors, and some shocking tales about the worlds most famous cults, she sheds light on the high cost of unchecked coercive behaviours to individuals and communities at large.

This book is dedicated to the many survivors who generously shared their stories with me. Without their openness I would have far less understanding of cults and their dynamics. I hope I have done them justice, while at the same time I hope they may find real justice in the future.

The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice, but will not listen to other men. He identifies the will of God with anything that makes him feel, within his own heart, a big, warm, sweet interior glow. The sweeter and the warmer the feeling, the more he is convinced of his own infallibility. And if the sheer force of his own self-confidence communicates itself to other people and gives them the impression that he really is a saint, such a man can wreck a whole city or a religious order or even a nation. The world is covered with scars that have been left in its flesh by visionaries like these.

However, very often these people are nothing more than harmless bores.

Thomas Merton,
New Seeds of Contemplation, 1961

The morning television host introduces me as the creator of the hit podcast Lets Talk About Sex. Sects, I correct him. Its tricky to pronounce, but Ive had a few years practice.

If youd told me a few years ago that Id be speaking to the media pretty regularly as a cult expert, I would have found it hard to believe you. I work in the film industry, mostly in marketing, though Ive also done a little programming for an outdoor cinema. I studied filmmaking and always have a creative project on the go, at that time it was usually a short fiction film. I didnt grow up in a cult; I didnt think I knew anyone who had. Around 2016 I was listening to a lot of true crime podcasts, and like so many people, I had an overlapping fascination with cults. How was it that people became enmeshed in them, and behaved in ways they never otherwise would have? Was brainwashing really a thing? As I typed cults into the Apple Podcasts search bar to learn more, I was disappointed with the dearth of results. Its almost hard to believe now, but at the time there was nothing. Maybe I could learn more by making this my next creative project? Added bonus: I wouldnt have to get a whole film crew together to make it happen. Once Id hit upon the idea and started chatting to friends about it, it became clear many other people were interested in knowing more too. And as I started digging, I was amazed to find how many people were trying to talk about this very subject. The survivors were keen to be heard. And there were so many more of them than Id realised.

Once I started releasing episodes, right away I was surprised to see the download numbers beginning to climb. Id often interrogated my own listening habits when it came to true crime. There was something distasteful about the voyeurism of it all, but the darker aspects of human nature are intrinsically compelling. I knew that I wanted to avoid sensationalism, and the more former cult members I spoke with, the clearer it became that they needed a platform where they could share their experiences without judgement. They, too, knew why people were compelled by cult stories, but there was a gap between the sensationalist angles these stories often took and their personal understanding of the real-world problem these groups pose. Id unwittingly hit upon the perfect convergence of the rise in podcast listening, a subject that needed more nuanced coverage, and a seemingly never-ending stream of people to interview.

These days, the subject of cults is never far from my mind. I often wonder whether I would have been able to muster the strength to find my way out, had I become entangled in one. I now know full well that if the topic comes up with a stranger, theres a high chance their family member or acquaintance is in a cult, or that they themselves once were.

Over the last five years, Ive spoken with dozens of ex-members of all different kinds of cults, from Australia, the US, New Zealand, Canada and the UK. Together, weve explored cults that arose from fundamentalist religious beliefs, self-help courses, radical politics, New Age thinking weve even discussed a cult born from a martial arts school. Synanon started as a drug addiction rehabilitation program; Ideal Human Environment was an outback leadership experiment; The Welcomed Consensus and OneTaste taught classes on the female orgasm.

Its become common for a message to pop up in my inbox from someone who wants to talk about their cult, the group that controlled their life. I now fully understand that I could write about a different cultic organisation every month for the rest of my days, and still never cover them all. The groups themselves are often highly secretive, and former members are ashamed and embarrassed about their involvement or the things they did and believed during their entanglement. They reach out to me because I work hard to get beyond the sensational headlines and to avoid a victim-blaming narrative.

Its important to note that many organisations have their share of people behaving in appalling ways. But the groups discussed in this book display a disproportionate share of these traits. In addition to talking with many former cult members, I have surveyed hundreds more, and in researching this book and my podcast I have spoken to academic experts, psychotherapists, and journalists who have covered the subject and specific groups extensively. The impressions Ive formed about these organisations are based on substantial amounts of reading and hours of interviews with people who have been directly involved, whose stories I consider to be reliable and true and whose opinions I believe are sincerely held.

Cult is a widely used and somewhat nebulous term. Its sometimes pejorative, but often shorthand for behaviour that involves one person or group being able to attract the devotion of others. You might say that a football club has a cult-like following, or that a rock star has the charisma of a cult leader. Things become more problematic when that devotion is harnessed in ways that damage the devotee. Of course, the line between whats damaging and whats not is often a grey area, or a matter of opinion. Not everything discussed in this book will be applicable to every group, and some of the events and behaviours referenced in relation to particular organisations happened in the past and are not necessarily continuing today. The examples are given to provide information on a more general level as to the sorts of problematic behaviours that can be perpetrated within cultish organisations.