Spiritual abuse, cult pseudo-personality and autistic masking

Note: I use the word “cult” here as shorthand for “a closed cultural context where

rules and coercive control of the individual have a potentially harmful effect.” (1)

Max Marnau

Spiritual abuse is not primarily the well-publicised sexual abuse within churches,

church-related organisations, and cults. While spiritual abuse may well include

sexual abuse, and sexual abuse within a faith context is undoubtedly spiritual abuse,

that is not the core of it. The core is, as Barker (2) says, “the manipulation and

exploitation of others by the misuse of spiritual privilege and power”. Most spiritual

abuse is much less outwardly dramatic, just as much domestic abuse is invisible

from the outside unless you know what you are looking for.

When a survivor looks back at their time with the cult they may well ask the same

question as outsiders asked while they were in it. “Did I really believe any of that?

That just wasn’t me – what was I thinking?” One survivor said, “I lost myself

completely”. (3)

I am a survivor myself (as are many therapists who work with this population) and I

asked myself that question for years until I read about the “cult pseudo-personality”

and the process that builds it.

That process is a form of systematically imposed group-think; it is aimed at changing

the self, or, if that is impossible, the self-concept: it is carried out mostly by a

programme of thought reform and coercive persuasion. Each adjustment is slight,

but the cumulative effect is a new psychic attitude or mental outlook.

The aim of spiritual abuse is to change the person fundamentally. To change their

soul, their self, their psyche – whatever your preferred term is. It has been likened to

brainwashing, and that’s not a bad analogy, because many religious organisations

talk in terms of purity, cleanliness, clearing, being washed clean – that’s the origin of

baptism, after all.

The typical pattern is that a person is drawn in by promises, kindness, acceptance,

friendliness, and love – the term “love-bombing” which seems to have been coined

by the Moonies, is accurate. It is only later that the abusive, demanding side

appears, the side which is specifically aimed at reducing or destroying a person’s

self-esteem and their very identity, using precisely those ties which the “honeymoon

period” at the start had created.

However diverse the organisations are, the process is basically the same. It involves

gaslighting, and cutting the person off from non-cult opinions, views, and information.

Many cults forbid contact with family and friends and some literally confine the

person within the cult premises to make the immersion in the cult outlook and beliefs

more total.

According to Barker (2) “Four Unspoken Rules” are common to all cults:

Don’t trust (anyone outwith the cult, and especially not yourself)

Don’t think (about previous or other views, or your feelings or instincts)

Don’t talk (to anyone outwith the cult or even within the cult for fear of fomenting

rebellion or questioning – many cults have some rule of silence)

Don’t question (at all!)

These rules are underpinned by a carefully curated programme of thought reform.

Lifton, who began by studying brainwashing in 1950s China (4) summed it up in his

Eight Criteria for Thought Reform. They are:

1. Milieu control (as in the unspoken rules above: this is the essential condition for

the rest to take effect)

2. Mystical manipulation (suggesting that the leader is somehow a superior being)

3. The demand for purity (this may include appearance, behaviour, a demand for

meekness and submission)

4. The cult of confession (even more powerful if it is public and combined with public

accusations of “wrongdoing” according to the cult definition)

5. The “sacred science” (any knowledge that comes from outwith the cult is

condemned)

6. Loading the language (this is particularly powerful. First, common words are given

different meanings. A good example is “freedom”, which normally means autonomy;

in a cult the phrase “true freedom” may be used of total obedience and total

submission to the cult – almost the opposite of the normal meaning of the word.

Secondly there may be words that are of particular importance to that cult: maybe

“Jehovah” or “clearing”. Either type of word will be a trigger for a survivor exiting the

cult)

7. Doctrine over person (the human does not matter: their conformity in belief and

behaviour is the essential)

8. Dispensing of existence (as above: the human has no rights)

When I discovered, about ten years ago, that I was autistic, and started to learn

about autistic masking/camouflaging, the concept of the cult pseudo-personality

instantly came to mind.

Here is the National Autistic Society summary (5) of what masking is:

“Hyper-vigilance for and constant adaptation to the preferences and expectations

(whether expressed, implied or anticipated) of the people around you.

Tightly controlling and adjusting how you express yourself (including your needs,

preferences, opinions, interests, personality, mannerisms and appearance) based on

the real or anticipated reactions of others, both in the moment and over time”.

That may be in day-to-day life or it may be in a therapy setting. Even without

considering the patently abusive “therapies” such as ABA (6) it is arguable that most

therapies aimed at “making a person less autistic” parallel the Eight Criteria and the

Four Rules to an alarming degree.

It has been argued that autistic people are more vulnerable to abuse (which seems

true) because we are “naïve” and can be poor at making accurate judgements of

people. There may be some element of truth in that, but it seems to me that in the

case of spiritual abuse it is also at least partly because the cult’s personality-

changing demands echo, and to some extent are an answer to, our lifelong attempt

to “be like them”, to conform to the neurotypical society in which we have to live. We

are used to being told we are wrong, are doing it wrong, that our experiences are not

valid, and we constantly do our best to “get it right”. The odds are against us

because the unwritten rules which prevail in this non-autistic society are a mystery to

us. So conforming is what we have been trying to do, consciously or unconsciously,

all our lives; and at last we are presented with actual rules, an actual schema, of how

we should be to be “saved”.

Not surprisingly, a cult survivor starting therapy is likely to struggle with the concept

of unconditional positive regard. Grace, unconditional acceptance, and the like are

spoken about but never actually experienced, except during the first, love-bombing,

stage. Since cults are performance-orientated and send the message “don’t trust”,

any therapy based on unconditional positive regard can be frightening and

disorientating.

Their mind says: “There is no such thing as unconditional positive regard. Therefore,

this therapist is faking it, and lying to me for some purpose of their own”. That is the

pattern they are programmed to expect.

Thus, the therapist’s unconditional acceptance will seem to echo the survivor’s early

experience in the cult, and could trigger flashbacks; perhaps to the first occasion

when the façade of loving acceptance “slipped” and turned to criticism and hostility

and he suddenly felt totally abandoned by the organisation to which he had given his

trust and – literally – his life. If the therapist is not aware of what is going on, they will

find it hard to grasp why the effect of giving unconditional positive regard is as if they

were giving the opposite.

Something similar is true of autists who do not realise they have been masking all

their lives. They have been consistently told that they are wrong – and often culpably

wrong. Their style of experiencing, thinking, and expression has been discredited.

They may almost literally not be able to hear the opposite.

Both cult survivor and masked autist may have little access to their real self.

Which means, for the person-centred therapist, that the first core condition –

psychological contact – may be hard to achieve at first with both types of client. But

as the pre-cult personality appears, as the mask drops, healing can happen.

As so often, Carl Rogers puts it best. (7) This is the last of his “Nineteen

Propositions”:

“As the individual perceives and accepts into his self structure more of his organic

experiences, he finds that he is replacing his present value system - based

extensively on introjections which have been distortedly symbolized - with a

continuing organismic valuing process”.

And that is true whether those introjects are imposed by an abusive cult or by a

lifetime of trying to live in a society which denies one’s whole perception of oneself,

the world, and everything.

So I no longer ask that question "did I really believe any of that?" because it is an

irrelevant category of question. I was not in touch with me, and the mask, and the

cult pseudo-personality – which went as deep as it needed to to prevent me being in

touch with me - was all-pervading. And the answer to the question "What was I

thinking?" is "About things that I had access to; and my self was not one of them" I

now look back and realise how perfectly the constant non-autistic rejection and

discrediting of how I actually thought, felt, and experienced the world had prepared

me for this abusive cultic takeover of my self.

When a person can reshape their view of the world and themselves, and include

previously denied experiences, they can begin to reshape their values. They can let

go of introjected values and become a fully functioning, actualised person, trusting in

themselves and their own experience…and so become that self that they truly are.

Written by Max Marnau

https://www.autistictherapistdirectory.com/uk-autistic-therapists/max-marnau

* * * * * * *

1. Hadding C, et al (2023) Being in-between; exploring former cult members’

experiences of an acculturation process using the cultural formulation interview

(DSM-5). Front. Psychiatry 14:1142189.

2. Barker, G. (2012) The Insidious Harm of Spiritual Abuse. (accessed at ccaa.net.au

on 17/2/26)

3. Jenkinson, G. (2011) Rebuilding the Jigsaw. Thresholds Winter 2011 4-7

4. Lifton, R. J. (1967) Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of

"Brainwashing" in China. New York: Pelican

5. https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/behaviour/masking

6. See for instance https://thinkingautismguide.com/2020/10/why-no-autistic-child-

should-be-in-aba-therapy.html

7. Rogers, C. (1951) Client-centered therapy: Its current practice, implications and

theory. London: Constable.