Cultish

I recently finished reading a book called Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell. The book focuses on different types of cults – from the infamous ones down to MLMs and Crossfit – and how language is used to recruit and keep people in these cults. It got me thinking about how a woman tried to recruit me into what I learned to be a cult.

Back in 2020 when I was living in London, I was using Bumble BFF to try and find some friends in the city. One day, I was talking with this woman who was really nice and complimentary towards me. We seemed to have a bit of the same interests and I could see us being friends. I don’t remember how the topic was brought up, but she asked if I’d been to church before. I said I had, but not since moving to the UK. She asked me if one Sunday I wanted to go with her.

Knowing that I wasn’t just going to say “yes” to any old church, I asked her where she went. She told me the name and I started my search. Now for the sake of me not wanting to give this “church” any of that lovely SEO traffic I won’t name it, but I will say that Rowan Collins does an excellent deep dive into the church here.

When I was reading the website, including their beliefs and doctrines, something wasn’t sitting right with me. It’s hard to describe, but I had this big gut feeling to not go with this woman to a service. I then turned to their staff page and noticed she was listed on there. I can’t remember her exact title, but it was something along the lines of “cyber outreach”.

It was then that I read their Google reviews, including some very in-depth ones, about how this church is a cult and to stay away. These reviews are now buried beneath many positive ones and I’m sure they have been deleted since I first saw them. I remember reading about how one person struggled to get out because it felt like they were controlling how they spent their days if they weren’t going to bible studies or not tithing enough. Another talked about how their interpretations of the bible didn’t seem right even as first time readers – how it felt like they couldn’t ask questions during studies/were pressured and bullied.

Needless to say, I ghosted the woman after her telling me where she went to church. Thankfully, she left it at that and didn’t try and pressure or question me. I do remember another person later on had asked me about joining her for a bible study and I ghosted her too. I still can’t imagine why someone would think it would be okay to meet an online person for the first time at a bible study!

Cultish talked a lot about lovebombing as a way to recruit people into cults. Thinking back on my experiences now, there definitely was a lot of lovebombing happening to try and get me to feel like I was making a genuine friend. It makes me so angry that they’re using this tactic of trying to find people who are looking for friends and try and entice them to become a “disciple”. It seems like they do a lot of focussing in on university students, especially those far away from home.

I looked at their Facebook page a couple years ago, just to see if it was still as weird as I remember and there was a post announcing that two of their “disciples” were now in a relationship. I thought, “Why is a church announcing a relationship on their facebook page?! Can’t people see how creepy and controlling this is?!”. It was just another example to show how this church would control your current and any future relationships.

I am glad I was smart enough and trusted my gut to not go to that service or bible study. It’s so scary to me to think how close I could’ve been to being sucked in. I hope my story brings some awareness and thoughts into how these individuals operate.

xx Hannah