The dark side of leadership

This man promised his followers the world...

then led them to their deaths.

This man was once part of a cult's inner circle

and now works to prevent others from doing the same.

I went from Stephen Hassan, who was a college student writing poetry,

and I became a right-wing fascist.

We look at what happens when leadership turns bad

and how to avoid becoming caught up in a cult.

Port Kaituma, Guyana:

in 1978, 918 people died here

and in the country's capital.

This is Jim Jones, an American religious leader.

He founded an organisation called the People's Temple in the US.

He took many of his followers to Guyana,

building a settlement called Jonestown, near Port Kaituma.

Soon there were reports of beatings, disease and other abuse.

Jim Jones' mental and physical health became worse.

November 18th, 1978:

temple members attacked a plane on this airstrip.

It was carrying a team investigating Jonestown.

Five people died. Eleven were injured.

In Jonestown, the remaining cult members

drank or were forced to take poison.

Men, women, children and babies died.

This pattern has been repeated.

Political leaders, like Kim Il-sung and Stalin,

had cult-like followings and were responsible for many, many deaths.

What gives a leader like this such control over their followers?

A cult-type leader is typically someone

who claims to have all the answers needed

to solve the world's problems and that includes

whatever problems the individual they're attempting to recruit faces as well.

As a result of this, they demand absolute commitment from their followers

and encourage them to escalate their commitment to the group

until a point is reached, where absolutely every waking moment,

and all the emotional, and intellectual,

and financial resources of the person concerned,

are committed to and involved in the group.

Cult leaders like to claim to be able to solve the world's and your problems

and they want your complete devotion.

Cult leaders are not necessarily easy to spot.

At the beginning, they are approaching you in a friendly spirit:

they claim to be offering just some interesting ideas about politics,

life, religion or whatever,

and they will only become clearly cult leaders for most people

after a period of time, when the person concerned

has already escalated their commitment to the group

beyond any point of reason.

Cult leaders are not always easy to spot.

They can appear very friendly at first.

Well, if we take Jim Jones as an example,

he staged miraculous faith healings,

in which he claimed people were being cured... cured of cancer,

that the blind could see and the crippled could walk,

but he didn't necessarily begin

to influence people by showing them these things.

At the beginning, most people wandered into

what seemed to be very warm and inviting church services,

where they felt welcomed in a way

that many of them hadn't been welcomed before,

and it was only after some period of time that they...

they then were exposed to these deceptive techniques to convince them

that Jones was a man with amazing powers beyond the norm.

Leaders like Jim Jones go to great lengths to welcome in new people.

We can call this being 'love bombed'.

Most of us are vulnerable to the lure of cult leaders

at various points in our lives,

particularly after we have had some kind of stressful experience,

such as maybe going through a divorce or losing our jobs.

For example, if you look at the Jonestown group,

many of the people who joined it had suffered from racist abuse

in the past, which traumatised them.

Many others were returning veterans of the Vietnam War,

who were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder

and were looking for some kind of idealistic community or group,

to which they could join and which would make them feel welcome.

Leaders promising all the answers

can seem attractive when we are vulnerable.

So, how can we recognise these leaders?

The first thing I think we need to do

is to require people making extraordinary claims

to offer a great deal of evidence in support of them.

Beyond that, if we think we are in an environment

where we're being subjected to pressures that we don't like,

that are asking us to constantly escalate our commitment to those groups

and where criticism of the leader is forbidden

or discouraged in various ways,

it is best to try and get out of that environment as quickly as is possible.

If you are feeling controlled by someone else, it is best to leave.

This isn't always easy to do,

so try to get support from others if you can.

Dr Stephen Hassan knows all about cults.

In the 1970s, he became a senior figure in the Unification Church –

more commonly known as the Moonies.

The Church was set up by a Korean called Sun Myung Moon.

He claimed to be God's messiah,

  but members were often cut off from their previous life,

prevented from seeing family and friends.

Steven now works to stop others from becoming a victim of cult leaders.

My personality changed dramatically.

That's one of the tell-tale signs actually –

of being in an authoritarian cult –

is what we refer to as a radical personality change.

So, I went from Steven Hassan, who was a college student writing poetry,

who had a ponytail and wore dungarees,

to a man with a short haircut, a three-piece suit

and I became a right-wing fascist,

essentially throwing out my poetry,

cutting off from my family and friends

because they raised concerns about my membership.

So, Steven Hassan's personality

changed dramatically when he became a Moonie.

How did he view the leader, Sun Myung Moon?

So, it's very important to understand that

I was already programmed to look at him

as the greatest man in human history,

so naturally I had my... my blinders on already,

when I actually met with him and experienced him.

I've heard many people see him speak and they'd say:

'He has no charisma. Like, how could you see anything in him?'

So, that's an interesting phenomenon that...

that somebody who feels that

the person's emanating great charisma and power,

could leave somebody else completely dry.

Steven admired Sun Myung Moon, but he had been programmed –

or brainwashed – to be. Others saw him differently.

How did this inform Steven's view of leadership?

First of all, I consider myself, before the Moonies, a...

a bookworm introvert!

When I got into the cult and I was pushed into leadership positions

and recruiting strangers on street corners,

I became very extroverted in my cult identity.

In fact, I was told to become a small Sun Myung Moon,

and think like him, and walk like him, and talk like him.

And when I got out of the cult, I didn't want any leadership;

I didn't want to influence anybody and...

and yet, I knew what I knew,

and I knew that I had a contribution to help others.

Steven realised he had a leadership role to play

in preventing others from joining cults.

So, how does his leadership differ now?

I want people to ask me questions

and I answer honestly and responsibly,

and often people will challenge me and say:

'We don't agree with this point or that.'

And I think about it and if I realise they're right,

I apologise and I change my point of view.

So, the key... the key is humility, I think.

Steven encourages people to challenge his views

and he is willing to change his mind.

So, how easy is it to fall for a cult these days?

Social media is intentionally

going to use information that's gathered about you,

from all of your activities, all...

there are some 5,000 data points

on every human being, I'm told –

and these are going to be oriented in algorithms towards you.

So, what I say is: you need to be really sceptical

and if you're curious about something,

really do a consumer-awareness approach –

it's saying they're making this claim –

it sounds outrageous; I need outrageous level of proof.

Be sceptical, or wary, of claims being made online

and check them out thoroughly.

So, people who make grand promises

and demand complete loyalty from you

are likely to be cult-like leaders.

Even online, question their claims, check their facts.

If they are authentic, they won't mind.