You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself

by David McRaney

The sorts of people who join cults are not all insecure or emotionally weak. You’d like to think that you are not the sort of person who could be beguiled by a charismatic leader with a clear vision—but you are not so smart. According to psychologist David Myers, cults form around sparkly, interesting individuals—Jim Jones, David Koresh, L. Ron Hubbard, Charles Manson—but people don’t usually follow the leader, they follow the ideals the leader proclaims to be serving. These leaders seem to have things figured out, and you want to figure those things out too. Gandhi, Che Guevara, and Socrates are all great thinkers who seemed to have access to secrets, insights into something bigger. Naturally, people followed them, hoping to gain their mojo through osmosis. Were their followers in a cult? See, that’s where the definition falls apart. This is why you are susceptible to this sort of behavior.