Miguel Perlado: "We have an effervescence of gurus and influencers with a sectarian narrative"

BarcelonaAs a teenager, Miguel Perlado (Barcelona, ​​​​1973) fell into a cult that emerged within a parapsychology school. From that experience he became interested in studying psychology and has been working for 25 years as a clinical and forensic psychologist specialized in cults, helping people to get out of them. He is the author of the book Got it! (Ariel) is a popularizer and has been an expert in trials that have been covered in the media.

When we think of cults, we think of Charles Manson's girls, the Waco massacre, Scientology, highly publicized and even violent cults. Are there still any of these?

— They still exist. They are well-identified structures with a long history, but as the world has changed a lot, the sects have also changed radically.

What is a modern cult like?

— The indicators are identical in almost all of them. Firstly, there is a person who is the sole founder and there is a cult of personality. The second variable is that there is a relationship style aimed at controlling and dominating people's lives, their intimacy, their emotions, their thoughts. And the third element is that it causes psychological or physical harm, sometimes of a sexual nature. We must forget about the idea of the classic sect and consider a broad spectrum: there are groups with low influence and groups with excessive influence.

The question is where you draw the line between a spiritual guide and a psychological control machine.

— The cut-off point has to do with excessive domination and control. There are transformative relationships that can bring out the best in people and there are relationships that are presented as transformative and that, in the end, end up dominating, controlling and exploiting people. Any spiritual or therapeutic practice requires a certain surrender, willingness, opening up. When the other person takes advantage of your vulnerability to exploit it and benefit from it, we have a destructive dynamic. Because there are sects that can have a certain level of following or devotion that is not exploitative, is not destructive, and there are groups that take advantage of the devotional component to strangle, control and dominate.

What is illegal?

— The law has significant difficulties in determining what a sect is. According to the Penal Code, associations that, even if they have legitimate aims, use mechanisms to control personality would be punishable. After all, what they believe or do not believe is not questionable: you can believe in the Virgin Mary, in flying saucers, in energies or in Pachamama, the question is whether this is at the service of exploitation or domination of the other.

But dominance is also difficult to quantify.

— There are degrees. It has to do with making you lose the ability to think, neutralizing or destroying your ability to relate freely with others, preserve your autonomy, think critically and be able to formulate it within the organization. If all this disappears, you have a problem, because you are in a context that does not favor autonomy but excessive, pathological dependence, which can become controlling.

But according to how some religious organizations, political parties...

— There are groups or institutions that may display old sectarian behaviors, but that does not make them a sect. Now, the more they accumulate, the more possibilities there are. Religions, as institutions, can have a control component. There is a long history of abuse in the name of religion or faith, this is indisputable, and work should be done to define ethical codes within these structures to avoid dynamics of spiritual abuse. But it must be prudent. A one-time abuse is not the same as a sectarian structure where abuse accumulates, becomes chronic and is institutionalized under the pretext that all this will transform you and allow you to break your limits, get out of your ego, transcend yourself. "I'm doing it for you."

There are also companies that exploit using speeches of self-improvement.

— It is a problem because the visibility of the sectarian context is becoming more blurred. So everything is a sect? It is. crossfit? My company? We have an effervescence of gurus, youtubers and influencers that pop up like mushrooms on the networks and that have a sectarian staging and narrative: a charismatic character with a language that does not allow you to think, whose phrases are repeated like clichés, that offer great absolutes, that force the person to identify with the message and the product... These are resources and mechanisms that we observe in a sectarian context, although we would not say so.

When does it become dangerous?

— What should alarm us is if a person increasingly disconnects from the same people, if he repeats the same message without any critical filter, if he gets irritated when you question or criticize him, if he has an evangelizing attitude. Nowadays, it is entered in a very gentle way, through a friend or acquaintance, it is not the aggressive proselytism of the 60s, 70s or 80s...

Today, when people don't believe in reincarnation as much, what do sects use to attract people?

— The spectrum has widened. There are religious or spiritual sects, personal growth sects, commercial sects, pseudo-political sects, there may be investments, memory courses... I have worked with music and painting groups that had become sectarian. Finally, it is not the doctrine but the mechanics that were established there: someone emerges as a prophet, closes the group, isolates and indoctrinates. Today, perhaps people are more skeptical, but they look for other alternatives. After all, the search for a meaning to life has not diminished, nor have the questions about what comes after.

What is the target audience that might end up in a cult?

— The ideal person is a young, idealistic person, with a good level of intelligence, with university studies, nonconformist, who wants to change things, somewhat obsessive or tenacious in their way of approaching tasks. These are not profiles with psychopathologies or mental illnesses, we are talking about productive people. In moments of vulnerability is when you are most accessible.

Cults offer a sense of belonging, order, purpose...

— True, they find good things, like a community, a meaning to certain questions, relief from certain ailments. In moments of emotional turbulence it is easier for someone to catch you with a totally and absolutely simplifying message. Because our mind works with the minimum effort, if possible. When you enter into a crisis you need even less complications: if you give it to me well chewed I will thank you: tell me what I should do. That is why sects go where there are natural disasters, social upheavals, economic crises.

And how do you get out of a group where you are comfortable and happy? How do you rescue someone who doesn't want to be rescued?

— Experience tells us that there will come a time when the relationship will deteriorate. Not always, of course, because the degree of suffering is different in each case. Should everyone be rescued? It depends. If the context causes trauma or abuse, the task is to help them wake up or open their eyes. In my case, I left because one of my friends had a psychotic outbreak and not only did they not help him, but they said that this was the manifestation of something that arose from within him.

What are leaders looking for?

— A common dimension is a malignant narcissistic functioning; that is, they are people who feed off of others and the more others suffer, the more satisfaction they get. They are parasites. They seem like they are going to be very attractive guys, but they are not. They tend to be quite normal people who have great charisma, they use the combination of miracle, mystery and authority.

What are the latest legal cases in which you have been involved as a specialist?

— In the case of the Miguelianos sect in Galicia, a herbalist who calls himself possessed by Saint Michael the Archangel founded a community that on the outside collaborated with the Church and carried out social activities and on the inside ended up abusing girls, some of them minors, and ended up in prison. In the case of La Chaparra, in Castellón, which begins trial in April, there is a man with supposed healing gifts and a whole religious narrative who for thirty years lived with and economically exploited his followers and abused girls. In Barcelona we have the case of "teacher José", who is waiting for justice, a small group that revolves around yoga and self-connection and also suffers from abuse. The one who passes through these sections is also part of the virtual communities and does not see any digital sections, in which the attraction and the indoctrination is an online fan who is unhappy that late in the day there is an offline contact, like in the case of the Defenders of Christ.

Has working on cults for so long made you more suspicious of everything?

— We are all affected by our work, of course. The risk is to become a non-believer or the opposite, to think that any spirituality is a sect, and that has no basis in fact. But I do maintain that, by seeing the deviation, the most pathological extreme, you can also understand what is a healthy or sane way of functioning.