Seriously, I’ve never been in a cult before and would love to have the experience.
You really don’t want that.
edit: A concrete useful suggestion is to reorganize your life in such a way that you have better things to do with your time than be a tourist in other people’s misery and ruin.
Are you speaking from experience or general knowledge?
If I go in knowing it’s a cult, doesn’t that change a lot? I’d be interested in a comparison of survival rates (of general sanity) between people depending on their mindset upon joining
If you join a cult, then even your physical survival will suddenly become a lot more perilous. You will likely have to conform, or die. Keep that in mind.
The main problem with joining a cult isn’t physical danger, or even the chance of having your mind permanently changed (retention rates for cult membership are very low). It’s what they’ll get out of you while you’re in there. In most cases you can expect to see a lot of pressure to do things like handing over large sums of money, or donating large amounts of unpaid labor, or abandoning social links outside the organization, and those aren’t necessarily things you can get back once you’ve burned them.
I’d expect going in with eyes open to mitigate this to some extent, but not perfectly.
You really don’t want that.
edit: A concrete useful suggestion is to reorganize your life in such a way that you have better things to do with your time than be a tourist in other people’s misery and ruin.
Are you speaking from experience or general knowledge?
If I go in knowing it’s a cult, doesn’t that change a lot? I’d be interested in a comparison of survival rates (of general sanity) between people depending on their mindset upon joining
If you join a cult, then even your physical survival will suddenly become a lot more perilous. You will likely have to conform, or die. Keep that in mind.
...Not that I know much about cults or their relationship to the law, but that seems kind of illegal.
The main problem with joining a cult isn’t physical danger, or even the chance of having your mind permanently changed (retention rates for cult membership are very low). It’s what they’ll get out of you while you’re in there. In most cases you can expect to see a lot of pressure to do things like handing over large sums of money, or donating large amounts of unpaid labor, or abandoning social links outside the organization, and those aren’t necessarily things you can get back once you’ve burned them.
I’d expect going in with eyes open to mitigate this to some extent, but not perfectly.