Why do they join a sect? How to avoid becoming a victim and ending up in a sect. Help for someone who has fallen into a sect

Ordinary people and journalists love to ask cult experts the question: “How can you tell that a loved one has joined a sect?” In fact, this question is somewhat meaningless. Many sectarians do not hide the fact that they are members of one or another dubious organization.

On the contrary, they will actively try to involve you in this organization, to make you an adherent of the corresponding cult. They will throw you various brochures and other propaganda materials, constantly inviting you to various sectarian meetings and gatherings.

Who gets into a sect

For sectarians, the tasty morsel is people who find themselves in a difficult life situation: divorce, dismissal, illness, death, etc. An additional factor is the unstable socio-political situation in the country, a social crisis. The third prerequisite is mental disorders.

The psychological characteristics of the risk group include:

lack of attention, love;
unmet need for care, protection;
weakness of will;
lack of life guidelines, beliefs, i.e. unformed worldview;
unstable psyche, suggestibility;
diffidence;
feeling of loneliness;
lack of independence, immaturity;
lack of meaning in life.

The sect gives understanding, support, security, love, stability and confidence, control. Accordingly, those who lack this in real life come there.

Precautionary measures

If you are interested in the question of how not to fall into a sect, then you need to take care of your psyche and strengthen your inner self.
It is important that a person is psychologically prepared and has the opportunity to protect himself from external influences and interference in his subconscious and psyche.
You must always be of sound mind, it is unacceptable to fall into depression, and rehabilitate yourself in time.
It is important to eliminate stress factors from your life, because with prolonged stress a person becomes vulnerable.
Avoid loneliness, try to communicate with people more often, expand your social circle.
Read as many books as possible.
Communicate with highly intelligent individuals, become more erudite.

If you notice that someone close to you has ended up in a sect, do everything to get him out of this organization and protect yourself from its influence.

Now you know what to do if you fall into a sect. As you can see, there is a group of individuals who have a higher risk of ending up in such a place. You need to be extremely careful, carefully select people to communicate with, not be naive, try to work on yourself, learn to resist suggestion.

Stages of recruitment, or how to avoid becoming a victim

A person is lured into a sect in four stages:

Care, love, attention. They sincerely rejoice at the newcomer, greet him with love and honor, pay him compliments, and emphasize his importance. The chosen one must believe that he was precisely what was missing to fulfill the great mission. The victim is promised freedom, happiness, answers to all the questions of the universe. This is the first trick: a contrast is formed between the evil reality, where no one notices, appreciates, or loves a person, and a friendly, caring group.
Killing critical thinking and unnecessary personality traits. They explain to a person that enlightenment cannot be achieved simply, one must fulfill a number of conditions, read literature, and try spiritual practices. Cultists keep a person busy as much as possible: work, lectures, attracting new members, meditation, prayers. A person does not have enough time to comprehend everything that is happening and look at his life from the outside. All this forces you to give up yourself, freedom, and the right to independence. Many sects even teach people how to speak correctly: what words, what timbre and tempo of speech should be used.
Strengthening the connection with the sect and the break with society. Hostility towards society, its harm, the dangers of medicine, psychiatry, politics, and other faiths are openly promoted. And even the family is passed off as people who interfere with the salvation of the individual; they urge you to quit school, work, change your place of residence. The victim is assured that society will not understand it, will not accept it, since it itself is mired in erroneous judgments. Naturally, those who try to reason with the sectarian only make things worse. He meets the resistance he was told about and becomes even more immersed in the group.
Complete dependence on the group, impossibility of returning to society. The person lost his family, job, income, housing, friends, and other support. The cult's grip becomes even tighter due to the fear and guilt generated in the participants. As a result, even if one of the participants understands the deplorable nature of their condition, they decide that going with the flow is the only possible option. He is tormented by a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. Moreover, the leaders assure that happiness and truth are about to be revealed to the sufferer. It seems stupid to the victim to retreat when almost everything has already been accomplished.

It is important to know! Through meditation, monotonous singing, and similar movements, sectarians achieve a state of trance. All this slows down thought processes and increases suggestibility. In this state, a person can “record” any installation into the brain.

After passing through all four stages, the victim finds himself completely subordinate to the teacher. Such “dolls” make fanatics.

“The time has come to give God’s things to God”

Immediately after meeting with Natalya and Vadim, Viktor Druzich stopped eating beef and increasingly met new acquaintances from the Tula region. And they gradually and somehow unobtrusively inspired Victor that his path on earth was to create a shelter for cows. Allegedly, this path was destined for Victor by God himself (Krishna’s name was not mentioned), and it was God who sent him both eloquence in conversations with potential clients and good luck in other matters. “The time has come to give God’s things to God,” they once said to Druzhich.

At this time our second child was born. We received maternity capital and took out a mortgage on an apartment in a new building. We began to arrange things, but suddenly there were a lot of “mother cows” in our lives. Victor began to spend more and more time in the Tula region and give more and more money to this shelter. “Grandfather there speaks to me through the cows,” he explained.

Evgenia Druzich

In 2021, Evgenia and Victor had a third child, a daughter, but the successful businessman brought home less and less money: the shelter needed hay, and the house of the “mother cow” needed repairs. Even though Druzic's income increased significantly during the pandemic, his family received almost nothing.

But in their apartment in Moscow and in Victor’s office, a new friend, Vadim, began to constantly appear - the same cow lover from the Tula region

In fact, he became the entrepreneur’s confidant, but constantly said that the main thing in this life is not family and children, but cows, which have suffered so much from people, but still remain kind and faithful.

Signs of infatuation with a cult

You can suspect that a person close to you is participating in a cult based on the following signs:

he himself said that he had found a great place where kind people help everyone;
a person disappears for a long time in an unknown place;
is in an inappropriately elevated mood;
says he has found the meaning of life;
wears paraphernalia, uses thematic vocabulary;
quotes incomprehensible, repetitive expressions;
speaks like a memorized text;
abandoned his usual way of life, interests, hobbies, made many new acquaintances, often goes to meetings;
communicates frequently by telephone and mail;
meditates or performs other rituals;
spends a lot of money.

Try to get answers to questions that might allow you to suspect participation in a cult:

Is there a teacher, how does he present himself?
Is there a hierarchy, how is it created and maintained?
How is power distributed, how and who exercises it?
How do they receive, use and distribute money?
How do they attract new participants, what methods do they use, how quickly does this happen?
Are participants free to choose information and other activities?
Does the potential victim feel a lack of sleep, time, or food?
Does the sect prevent communication with people who do not belong to it?
Does the group accept the person as he is or ask him to change? Is this change acceptable for the participant?
Does the sect give a negative assessment to the outside world and the previous life of the participant?
Is it acceptable to deceive other people for the sake of the interests of the group?
Does the leader require unquestioning obedience to his words and execution of orders? Are you punished for trying to think critically?
Leaders are convinced they have supernatural powers but can only reveal them to a select few?
Are the rules of conduct the same for all participants?

Analyze each answer regarding the main characteristics of a sect. Read more about this in the article “Sectarianism - what is it from a psychological point of view. Signs and dangers of participation in sects."

"Bearer of Divine Qualities"

Anna Borisova was born in September 1985 in Vitebsk. When she turned 16, she met 22-year-old X-ray specialist Ivan Kuznetsov from the Altai Territory. Soon a romance broke out between them, and in 2004 the girl moved to Germany with him, and they got married there. In the summer of 2005, their first child was born - son Daniel.

Ivan was an excellent specialist, one of the best adjusters in the world, enjoyed authority and earned good money.

In 2009, he was lured to a large European concern, and the family moved to Switzerland, to the city of Schlieren near Zurich

There, on July 1, 2010, they had a son, who was named David. Ivan’s salary allowed him to live comfortably. At the same time, he had dual citizenship - the Russian Federation and the Federal Republic of Germany, but Anna remained a citizen of Belarus and received a residence permit as the wife of a German citizen, a valuable employee. Later, already in Russia, this will play an important role in her life.

Photo: Benoit Tessier/Reuters

During the investigation, it turns out that Ivan’s father, Alexander Kuznetsov, was an adherent of Jehovah’s Witnesses (an extremist organization banned in Russia), which caused discord in the family, and the relatives did not speak for many years. This burdened the son, and in 2021 he resumed communication with his father.

In 2021, Anna found a certain Tamar online - a native of Ufa, Zemfira Gafurova, born in 1971, who was broadcasting that modern Christianity is a heresy, and you can only believe the tenets of the Old Testament. She considered herself the only righteous Christian in the world.

One day I came across a video of Tamar talking about the end of the world. I told my husband and he became interested. I wrote to this woman, and she, having answered our first questions, then suggested we communicate on Skype - they say it’s more convenient. Soon my husband became her constant interlocutor and began to transfer money to her at her request

Anna Kuznetsova

Gafurova perceived Kuznetsov’s appearance among the adherents of the sect, which she called “Disciples of Christ,” as a sign from God and soon named Ivan Apostle Peter. And at the same time she asked him to help with money.

Zemfira Gafurova - Tamar, leader of the Disciples of Christ sect

Photo: Telegram channel “Oper leaked”

The details of the case of the “Disciples of Christ” were told to Lente.ru by Major of Justice Alexander Pankratiev, an investigator for especially important cases of the third department for the investigation of especially important cases of the investigative department of the Investigative Committee of Russia (ICR) for the Sverdlovsk region. According to investigators, around 2021, Gafurova created a religious association based on her own sermons.

Experts concluded that Gafurova positioned herself as a bearer of special divine qualities and a representative of supernatural power. Her teachings promoted the rejection of all secular values, repentance for sins, following the Lord, and also sharply criticized other religions

Major of Justice Alexander Pankratiev

Help for someone who has fallen into a sect

What to do for first aid:

Try to find out as much as possible about this sect. Do not take an aggressive position, unobtrusively find out at least the name. Then you can search for material on the Internet. Find out what the sect promotes, what the participants do, where and how.
If the destructive, asocial nature of the sect is evident, contact the police.
Find a therapist who specializes in cult issues.
Gather a support group of like-minded people: those who suffered from the sect and those who were an authority for your relative who fell into the sect.
Maintain the victim's past life connections.
Don't forbid, don't criticize, don't joke about faith. This way you will only push the person away from you and send him to a sect. Behave as friendly and neutral as possible, unobtrusively provide alternative concepts, find contradictions in sectarian teachings, ask for an explanation, since you don’t understand and want to figure it out. Fight for the critical thinking of the person close to you. Maintain trust by all means. This is the only way you have a chance to help a person.
Find out as much as possible about the sect, learn to use its terms. This will make it easier to build a dialogue with the victim. Don't forget to season it with kindness, tenderness, and non-judgmental acceptance.
Build a religious group portfolio. Write down everything you learn there.
Don't be ashamed, don't blame yourself - seek help. You can't fight a sect alone.
If necessary, take extreme measures: organize a move and further work with a psychotherapist at your new place of residence.

After the person moves away a little from the sect, engage in his education and support. Be sure to continue psychotherapy. It is necessary that the victim herself can recognize sects in the future and resist them. A person who has once found himself in a sect needs full-time work with a psychologist: increasing stress resistance, developing adequate coping strategies, analyzing psychological trauma, correcting self-esteem, drawing up a life plan, etc. It is not sects that make a person dysfunctional - it is unhappy people who come to them .

“The cow shelter needs land.”

Two weeks later, Viktor Druzich checked out of the apartment, the loan for which had still not been repaid, and checked out his wife and children. According to the law, he could not discharge minors onto the street, but for some reason the migration service of the Ostankino district removed the children from registration without a moment’s hesitation.

Life of adherents of the Goshala Aditi sect, which Viktor Druzich fell into

Photo: @aditigo108

After another 14 days, Victor came to the guardianship and trusteeship authorities and wrote a denunciation against his wife: she allegedly violated the rights of the children, since they lived without registration and, in fact, became homeless. After this, Evgenia stopped paying benefits as a mother of many children.

This is all done in order to return the money for the apartment purchased with a mortgage. The fact is that the cow shelter needs a car and a new plot of land, which they have already looked at. And Vadim advises Victor on the steps to implement all these plans

Evgenia Druzich

It turned out to be easy to establish Vadim’s identity, but, alas, this was done after the drama that broke out in the Druzich family. Vadim Kozhaev, a former Belarusian police officer, was found guilty of attempted murder of a fellow villager in 2004 and sentenced to a relatively short term.

Immediately after the verdict, he fled to Russia, from where he wrote a statement to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming that he had been slandered because of his religious beliefs as a Hare Krishna.

It is noteworthy that he lost his lawsuit at the ECHR: judges in Strasbourg found no signs of persecution on religious grounds, but found plenty of evidence of an ordinary crime. Kozhaev was extradited from Russia in 2014.

And in 2021 he returned to the Tula region.