The deadliest thing to a cult was its ex-members. People who left realized that almost everything they’d been told was a lie. The world didn’t end if you left the cult. Not everyone was out to get them. Life outside still had meaning. In fact, life outside could be better. So the first thing almost every cult did when its members left was to sever all connections and demonize the people who’d left. Painting them as selfish traitors, as collaborators with the enemy. That way the cult leader made sure no one would be influenced by them, and it also made it harder for additional members to leave.
