No Exit

No Exit. There is simply no proper or honorable way to leave the cult. Period. To leave is to fail, to die, to be defeated by evil. To leave is to invite divine retribution.

• Obviously, if everybody leaves the cult, then the phony guru's game is over. So he is the one who really has reason to fear people leaving.

• In some cults, members are told to absolutely avoid any contact with people who have left the cult. They are told that the departees are evil and dangerous, and must be shunned and ostracized.

Such ostracism also acts as a strong deterrent to people who may be thinking about leaving. Cardigan, in "Mainstream Cults," makes the point that the fact that every member of the cult knows for certain what will happen if they leave is a potent psychological threat. It goes beyond a vague, remote, "you'll burn in Hell for eternity" threat. It's an immediate, here-and-now threat: "We will not associate with you ever again. You will be completely cut off and totally alone." No one wants to risk being completely ostracized by his or her friends. And since most cult members associate almost exclusively with just other cult members, such ostracism means being cast completely adrift, and left totally friendless and alone. The true nature of the so-called friendships within the group will only be revealed after a devotee has left the fold. Members have seen this happen, but did not give it a thought at the time, because it happened to someone else. But when they undergo the same fate themselves they will feel the humiliation of not being greeted anymore, marriage gone -- even not being recognized by one's own children anymore. The outcast feels thrown in an abyss. He is cut off from social contacts, his life in pieces. The magnitude of this desperate experience should not be under-estimated. The renegade will feel deep shame. He may have confessed in the group intimate secrets, which are now being ridiculed by his former so-called friends. The expulsee, deeply hurt, may become embittered and even enter into a suicidal mental state.