4 Things I Know About Trump and His Base from Living in Cults for 40 years

Are there cults out there? Yes, more than you know.

Are they all bad? No

Are they all religious? No. (The Marines? the Pittsburgh Steelers? the

American Medical Association?)

Is Trump’s base a cult? Absolutely.

How do you know? Because I lived in cults for 40 years.

Can experience in cults tell us anything about Trump and his followers? Yes, a lot.

Here are four characteristics of cults, or at least the ones I was involved in, which help explain Trump and his base.

Those who come to cults are not winners in life but they are sincere

There are cult leaders who are charlatans, but there are also many who are not. There are some who offer a clear and inspiring teaching which draws people who are not satisfied with the life they are living.

The “cult” (we called it a “spiritual collective”) that I was in for over 30 years fits some of the pictures you probably have, but not all of them. There was no free love, or men wearing garlands, or pressure to never leave, or playing of sitars, or people dressed in white or orange. We lived in a small village in homes like yours with neighbors who were not in the collective. But we also shared the same spiritual teaching and did our best to live by it. The money was pooled, whether you were an earner or not. And money was…