Explained (2018–…): Season 2, Episode 1 - Cults - full transcript

I think what attracted India
to the group

was... this sense of unified purpose.

[Lakeith Stanfield] The group was NXIVM,

and its unified purpose
was self-improvement

using a patented method
of Rational Inquiry

for Executive Success,

led by a man named Keith Raniere.

But the claim that Raniere
had one of the world's highest IQs,

the way students had to bow
to a picture of him on the wall,

and how they had to call him
The Vanguard unsettled Catherine.

At the end, you know, India came up to me,
and she said, "Mom, this is for me."



And I... My jaw dropped. I was in shock.

India would end up giving
hundreds of thousands of dollars to NXIVM,

and got drawn into something
much more sinister than Executive Success.

I got a call from somebody,
and she said within NXIVM,

there is a secret group.

And that's the first time
I heard this term "DOS."

Dominus Obsequious Sororium.

It was sold
as a female empowerment group, but...

That's Latin
for "master over female slave."

I was then told
that they were branding these women.

The branding
was part of an initiation into DOS.

A new member would be blindfolded,
told to take off her clothes,

and lie on a massage table.

Three other women would then
hold down her legs and shoulders,



and she was told to say,

"Master, please brand me.
It would be an honor."

The women were told
that the symbol represented the elements,

but they'd been branded with
Keith Raniere's initials.

Thousands of groups like NXIVM
have risen throughout history,

groups that are often described
as cults.

But it's impossible to know how many,

because most cults insist
they're not cults

and almost nobody in a cult
realizes they're in one.

So what makes a group a cult?

And how have some been able to make
ordinary people do horrible things?

[man] I shall be God, and beside me,
there shall be no other.

[second man] Yeah!

[third man] We want to
share this knowledge with everyone.

[woman] It was felt that
whatever method necessary

was okay because we were heavenly children
and God knew why we were doing it.

Waco is gonna bear witness
against the ATF.

You want to keep playing that game,
somebody's gonna get hurt.

[man] You are told to replace your family
and discard your old identity.

Your only chance to survive
is to leave with us.

[Jim Jones] Love is a healing remedy.

Peoples Temple was unique at that time.

It was black and white
and American Indian and Hispanic.

We all walked in naively thinking,

"Okay, Jim said he wants a utopia.
I want a utopia."

We thought we were joining a movement
to make the world better.

But what they were actually joining
ended up defining for the world

- the modern idea of a cult.
- Thank you, baby.

Shh.

In the late 1970s,
the group's leader, Jim Jones,

led nearly a thousand followers
from the Peoples Temple in California

to the remote jungles of Guyana
to build Jonestown,

sold as a self-sufficient utopia,

free of the violence and racism
that plagued America.

- You all happy you here? You happy, Tom?
- Yes.

Everybody's happy down here.
You can see that that's an obvious fact.

But concerned relatives
began pressuring officials

with pamphlets
about a nightmare at Jonestown,

saying Jones was using mind programming,

even holding mock mass suicides
to condition them to die for the cause.

California Congressman Leo Ryan
flew down to Guyana to investigate

- and never returned.
- [Jones] It's too late.

The congressman's dead,
the Congress today is dead.

If we can't live in peace,
then let's die in peace.

[followers cheering]

The images of nearly a thousand dead,

the largest mass murder-suicide
in modern history,

horrified the world.

[man] Cultists who believed
in everything that Jim Jones said

took their own lives.

[woman] Some shot to death.
Most apparently self-poisoned.

[second man] There were empty bottles
of potassium cyanide.

Entire families took the poison together.

[woman] Among the bodies were those
of the Temple's fanatical founder,

- the Reverend Jim Jones.
- [third man] Jones told them,

"It is time for us to meet
in another place."

[Stanfield] Groups called cults,
led by charismatic leaders

with extreme beliefs
and fanatic followers,

have existed in almost every country
across the globe.

But the scale of destruction at Jonestown

gave the word "cult"
a new horrifying connotation...

and drove social scientists
in the United States to publish research

attempting to define what these
destructive groups had in common.

They settled on
three main characteristics.

A cult is a group or a social movement

that's led by a charismatic leader,

uh, who is authoritarian

and who demands to be revered
as a godlike figure.

We were taught to believe what he said
was straight from the mouth of God.

In the "community," as we called it,
he was God's authority.

The second key element of a cult...

The group has some form of
indoctrination program,

uh, sometimes called "thought reform."

Or mind control.

It was almost like
the operating system was the Bible,

and then he was putting
all of his programs in there on top of it.

And people would kind of accept them

because they accepted the Bible,
so they shouldn't question the Bible,

so they had to believe it.

There is exploitation,

uh, either sexual, financial...

Some type of exploitation of the members.

Whenever, you know, Sun Myung Moon

needed my parents
for some kind of mission or anything,

they had to put the cult leader's needs
before their children's.

Like my father. He was gone
most of the year when I was growing up.

But there's a small problem
with this definition of a cult.

It's a value judgment
more than it is a-a functional word.

Every prophet of every major religion
can be considered a charismatic leader.

In fact, the biggest joke
in religious studies

is that "cult plus time equals religion."

"Cult" comes from the Latin "cultus,"
meaning "to till or cultivate,"

and in antiquity, was used to describe

the sacrifices, offerings, and monuments
built to cultivate favor with the gods.

In time, it came to mean
any unorthodox religion.

The Roman Empire
referred to Judaism as a cult.

Some say that
certain versions of Islam are cults.

Nowadays, most scholars prefer the word
"new religious movement" or "NRM."

And many arose,
not to exploit their followers,

but to help them survive
in the face of an external threat.

[Reza] The collective's very sense of self
is under attack by the world,

and the only way to salvage one's identity

is to come together under the leadership
of this charismatic authority

and to rebuild from scratch.

Jesus of Nazareth lived in perhaps

the most politically
and socially turbulent era

in the history of the Middle East,
which is saying a lot.

And so Jesus was one of
at least a dozen messiahs

that we know of.

New Religious Movements have arisen

to help humans navigate turbulent times
throughout history.

In Europe, many arose
during the turmoil of the Renaissance

and as a backlash
against institutional religions.

In India,
they grew out of social turbulence

caused by a transition to agriculture,

and later, as a response
to British colonialism.

But one country in particular

welcomed new religions with open arms
from its very founding.

Going back well into the 1600s,

the American colonies
had developed a reputation

as a safe harbor for religious radicals.

And there was one small patch of America

that was especially seized
by this new religious fervor.

A section of land
stretching from Albany to Buffalo,

known as the Burned-Over District.

The Burned-Over District
became the birthplace of Mormonism,

of Seventh-day Adventism,
of spiritualism.

And a wide range
of other social, political,

and religious movements as well.

Wherever you encounter religious openings,

you inevitably encounter
political openings as well.

Jemima Wilkinson
was one prophet from that area.

She recovered from
a near-death experience with typhoid

to declare herself
a reincarnation of a holy spirit

named Public Universal Friend.

And it was probably the first time

that most Americans had ever seen
a woman preaching or speaking in public.

This kind of American Sinai

where people felt they were receiving
all kinds of messages and dispensations,

not strictly religious in nature.

This pattern repeated again and again.

And they spread beyond
the Burned-Over District,

like to New York City in the 1930s,

where tens of thousands
considered a man called Father Divine

- to be God on Earth.
- [cheering]

For all of humanity, I am broadcasting.

[cheering]

One has to understand Father Divine

as a very early progenitor
of the civil-rights movement.

Father Divine's early followers

were involved in protests
and petition drives

and letter-writing campaigns
that insisted upon civil rights

at a time when that call
was very muted in American life.

But a call that would grow

and touch off a new era
of social upheaval...

with racial tensions
erupting into violence

- and a wave of political assassinations.
- [gunshots]

Many began doubting
the war in Vietnam was just.

Americans' trust in their government
plummeted...

and the specter
of imminent nuclear annihilation

made the entire nation
feel like it was under siege.

This drove a generation
to search for new kinds of community

and alternative sources of meaning.

And so what we saw at that time

was the rise
of these charismatic individuals,

some of them American, many of them
drawing from traditions of the East,

particularly in India.

"We are the righteous few."

"We know the answer."

And that knowledge was an antidote

for the turbulent times in which we lived.

But that knowledge
sometimes came with a catch.

The search for
alternative forms of meaning,

these things have at their back
a very powerful appeal.

And sometimes people start out,

even the leaders themselves,
believing in that appeal.

But there is a break in human nature

in which idealism can very easily
turn into authoritarianism.

The same religious tolerance
that allowed the country to thrive...

Take that step.

...made Americans
particularly susceptible to manipulation.

[cheering]

Even Father Divine was accused of

taking advantage of his followers
financially,

including convincing them
to buy him a hotel,

and bilking a woman
out of her inheritance.

And one man was watching all this
and taking notes...

Jim Jones.

So Jim Jones, he studied,
you know, Father Divine

to see how Father Divine
set up his community.

Jones' desire to learn from Divine

was even immortalized
in a 1980 TV miniseries.

That's James Earl Jones
playing Father Divine.

But how could you sustain such a movement?

How did my son Moses sustain his flock?

But the cost?

Ask and you shall receive, my son.

Ask and you shall receive.

Jim Jones took some of the appeals
to social justice

that were intrinsic
to Father Divine's message,

and he used them,
first to attract people,

and later, to manipulate people.

And it's when that manipulation
becomes destructive

that a group becomes a cult,
according to social scientists.

It's really not about the belief system,
per se.

It's about the behaviors of the group

and the ways in which it uses, uh,
various methods of influence and control

to manipulate and exploit the members.

Charles Manson convinced his followers
to murder nine people

in an attempt to incite a race war.

Shoko Asahara ordered his followers

to release sarin gas in the Tokyo subway,
killing 13.

And Marshall Applewhite of Heaven's Gate
convinced his followers of this...

Periodically,
that level comes in close enough

and offers a graduation class,

offers life out of this evolutionary level

into that evolutionary level.

Which led many
to castrate, then kill themselves,

believing this would help them
ascend to a higher plane.

The eternal fascination with cults
stems from the mystery

of how their leaders
exert such complete control.

[Janja] What they're using
is basic social psychology.

They're using everyday influence
and control techniques.

[Stanfield] So as a public service,
we present to you

seven elements that social scientists say
can lead to indoctrination into a cult.

Number one...

You're going through a transition,
perhaps a difficult one.

I was a starving,
not-very-successful actor

in my 20s in New York.

When you're in that vulnerable state,

uh, you're going to be more open
to trying something.

Maybe, you know, pull a thing
off a... on a bulletin board

that says, "Come to this yoga class."

The first meditation began,
and I felt the experience

of wave after wave
of love and connectedness.

Which is all part of the soft sell.

I had a questionnaire.

Just, like, questions about life
and the universe, "Are you happy?"

Once you take that first step

and go to that first meeting or talk
or meditation group or Bible study,

recruiters can work on you
and invite you back,

and-and it basically is a process
from there.

We'd encourage them
to go to this retreat center in the woods,

you know, where we can
further indoctrinate them.

This is the first step
toward the creation of a new reality.

We were kept in this closed environment...

No outside books, no TV, no movies...

To protect us from
what-what my parents would say

is the defilement of the world.

Over time, you're going to become,
uh, more and more enveloped

in this what I call
a self-sealing system.

Until your most important relationship
is with "The Dear Leader."

They would have Sun Myung Moon

and/or his family members come out.

"Ladies and gentlemen,
the true parents of mankind...

Reverend and Sun Myung Moon."

You're in a group
that has found the answer,

and you have this leader
who is the only leader

who is the only one
who can take you on this path.

And everything else
and everybody else is wrong.

Every Sunday morning at 5:00 a.m.,

we just bowed to a picture
of Reverend and Mrs. Moon.

We were told to love Reverend
and Mrs. Moon as our own parents,

but even more than our own parents.

Which the leader will often solidify
by creating an external enemy.

He said to me, "You're going to be raped,
you're gonna be beaten.

You're going to be left in a ditch."

He said all these horrible things
about what would happen to me if I left

because the world was such an evil place.

This means that you're going to
"psychologically" run to the cult leader.

You become in a perpetual state of denial
of your own reasoning power.

You don't reason anymore.

People in this state of
cognitive dissonance,

they're going to choose
over and over and over

for the cult or the cult leader.

Which brings us to the key way
cult leaders scale up their control...

Simple peer pressure.

This fundamental human desire
to be a part of a group

can override
even our own perception of reality.

In 1951, social psychologist Solomon Asch

demonstrated this
by placing several students in a room.

All but one were in on the experiment.

Your task is a very simple one.
You're to look at the line on the left

and determine
which of the lines on the right

is equal to it in length.

- [man] Two.
- [second man] Two.

Two.

Uh, two.

Seventy-five percent of those tested
would end up agreeing with the majority,

even when their responses
were obviously false.

It's this pressure to conform

that the cult leader uses
to control members.

In a way, that's what he did
the last day at Jonestown.

He incited a riot, and then he sat back
and let peer pressure work.

All to serve the whims
of a likely sociopathic narcissist.

He said, "You couldn't live without me,
so since I'm dying, you're gonna die, too,

and you're not that important
because I'm the one who's essential."

When the kids
were all outside the pavilion,

then he had his secretaries
and mistresses

go out and shoot the poison
in their mouths,

and so he started killing the children.

No parent could sit there,

knowing that the child died
ten feet from them,

and think that they were gonna go back
and-and live a life in the United States.

Today, a different kind of threat

is driving people
to search for new sources of meaning.

There's an epidemic of social isolation
so serious,

it's been recognized as a public health
threat in countries around the world.

Medical experts believe loneliness

is becoming Australia's
newest public-health crisis.

[woman] America is in the grips of
a loneliness epidemic.

The government has appointed
a minister for loneliness.

[in Japanese] There are 800,000
to 900,000 middle-aged people

who have completely withdrawn
from society.

People don't necessarily
have a built-in community

be it at the level of family,
at the level of church,

at the level of neighborhood.

As fewer people identify with
organized religion

and the communal gathering spaces
they offer,

virtual communities
are helping to fill that void.

What the Internet has done
is, for the first time in human history,

made the definition of community
no longer geographically bound.

We are finding statistically small,
but personally huge,

groups of like-minded individuals

who will reinforce us
and reinforce who we are.

This has led to a new generation
of online leaders

who are using the tools of social media
to attract fervent virtual followers.

You're going to feel like

you have your own hands in your own clay
because you do.

The only place where you can find
what you're seeking is within you.

You are accepting yourself
a hundred percent for who you are.

If people don't like it, too bad.
They can hit the road.

[Tara] You can disseminate information
quickly to a bunch of followers

if you're just in your room
with no social connections.

You're able to, because of
the sheer size of the Internet,

find a community for almost anything.

And that sense of reinforcement
can be really, really powerful.

Teal Swan is one such leader.

Some people actually use depression
as a way of avoiding suicide.

She's attracted a large following

by offering controversial advice
to the hurting and lonely.

What suicide is
is pushing the reset button.

It's not a good or bad decision
in and of itself.

Some have accused Teal of being
an online cult leader, which she denies,

although she acknowledges
she has "the perfect recipe for a cult."

"These people are desperate.
They need my approval.

They'll do whatever I say."

And the built-in features
of today's online gathering spaces

can help lead the vulnerable astray.

You watch one video,
and YouTube will suggest others,

and often, that can lead to, for example,
a spiral of radicalization.

And a lot of online spaces,
like message boards,

can create a cult-like community
without a need for a leader at all.

These alternate movements,
they provide answers,

and they provide a home.
They provide someone to listen to them.

Vulnerable people at a crossroads
can easily find this content.

There's often a soft sell
with content that's less extreme,

like a forum where
men vented about sexual frustration

that can pull people into a new reality,

exacerbated by an external enemy
and enforced by peer pressure.

Other men urging each other
to seek revenge.

Just because
they don't have physical spaces

does not make these modern-day cults,
um, any less potent.

And in the last few years,
these scenes have horrified the world.

[woman] The Santa Barbara shooter,
Elliot Roger,

left a trail of threats online.

[man] He stabbed or shot
six people to death.

These forums
are leading to physical violence.

A van plowing into pedestrians
on a busy street in Toronto.

[man] Incel. It's an online community

frustrated with their romantic lives
with women.

[Stanfield] Minutes before
the Toronto attack,

the man responsible
posted a call-out to 4chan,

his message board of choice,
referring to it as a sergeant,

as if it was his commanding officer.

[woman] A mass shooting in New Zealand,
a New Zealand mosque,

leaves dozens of people dead,

with the gunman live-streaming
the incident on social media.

[Stanfield] The attacker in New Zealand
boasted to his online community

about the mass murder...

which was enthusiastically endorsed
by his community.

One trapped in an alternate reality
as complete as any physical cult.

These online cults do give people

who believe themselves to be disaffected
or alienated from the dominant culture

an alternate narrative,
an alternate script to follow.

Whether that alternative narrative
is built online or in the physical world,

on the promises of social justice

or the promise of
a better, happier, successful self,

they all use the same methods of control,
and they're all incredibly hard to escape.

[Janja] It's hard to leave a cult
because it's your whole world.

In time, the majority of cult members
will leave on their own,

often when they discover
their infallible leader

isn't so infallible.

It was very commonplace

for him to throw out a date
when the end of the world would be.

If you look at his track record,
he was very inconsistent.

Or when they find their guide
to a moral life is actually a hypocrite.

They all took vows of celibacy,
pretended to keep those vows.

Muktananda himself, I later learned

that he was a very fervent,
prodigious sexual predator.

Or when their constructed reality cracks.

My dad passed away.

The leadership allowed me
to go to his funeral.

Just getting away from my situation

and looking at things
from a different perspective,

I said, "I have to-I have to get out,
and I have to get my kids out."

The idea of leaving the cult
and going into that world,

uh, is-is very terrifying.

I remember being scared
to cross the street

because I was afraid that, you know,
God would take my life.

It's difficult also because you're not
used to making your own decisions.

About seven or eight years ago,
I-I was in, like, a-a book club,

and it was triggering, 'cause it was like,
"What do you think of this book?"

And I-I was just getting agitated,

and I could barely get a word out,
and I just stopped going.

People I loved, something I believed in,

was suddenly proven to be
just a delusion. You know?

So you kind of hate yourself for that.

It's going to be exhausting,

and hopefully the person
will have a safe place

to put their life together.

The arrest and conviction of Keith Raniere
has allowed Catherine and India Oxenberg

to begin the long process of recovery.

Ultimately, we are completely reunited.

It's a process.

She understands that it impacted her

and that she's not broken,
but she's not unscathed, either.

Parts of myself
that I had tried to kill off,

they started coming back,
and it's gonna sound ridiculous,

but I began birdwatching,
and that was a part of my old identity.

My survival instinct had not been crushed.

And whatever it was gonna mean
for me to survive,

that's what I was focusing on.

You find other weirdos.

You find other people who are...
Who feel a little offbeat or different.

I mean, I'm an artist already, so...

a lot of artists...
We're all weirdos, right?

So stone by stone that you turn over,

you realize, like,
"Oh, there's really nothing to fear here,"

and that I'm still, like, learning.

I was starting from a blank slate
in my late 20s.

I still feel like I have that-that ability
to learn new things

that maybe some people my age don't have,

and I think it's because
I will always want to learn,

because I was deprived of learning.

I decided when I was 21 or 22

that I wanted to, really,
at some point in my life,

be able to give back and to help people

in a way that I didn't have when I left.

Teaching them they can
make a choice for themselves,

that they can do something
that's good for themselves,

and they can be independent like that.

You know, I'm a survivor,
and from pretty early on,

I felt like every day that I survive,

I was flaunting it in Jim's face.

Laura Kohl returned to Guyana in 2018
with other Jonestown survivors,

the lucky few who happened to be
away from Jonestown

the day the tragedy occurred.

I think that that's something
that doesn't get said enough.

It's not Jim Jones and... and the people.

It's 917 people and that other guy.

[sniffs and laughs and sniffs]

[closing music playing]