When I was nineteen, three women approached me in the cafeteria at Queens College. They noticed the books I had just bought for my Spring semester, asked me questions, and made me feel interesting and appreciated. My girlfriend had recently dumped me pretty harshly, and I welcomed the attention.
They did not tell me they were recruiting me into the Moonies cult. They lied about being students. Lied about not being part of a religious group. I had no idea they were full-time recruiters and that I was going to be subjected to a sophisticated, systematic social influence program known as brainwashing. I wound up being told to drop out of college, cut myself off from my family and friends, and stop reading books or newspapers. I was turned into a fanatical right-wing fascist.
That history gave my conversation with Dr. Mara Einstein a particularly personal connection. Mara teaches at Queens College, the very place where I was recruited. She came to the study of influence through advertising and media. I came to it through my experience in a destructive cult and my work helping others understand and recover from authoritarian control.
We had a great deal to talk about.
On Cults, Culture, and Coercion, we discussed her book, Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults. It examines how commercial interests draw on our desire for belonging, our insecurities, and our trust in other people to shape what we buy and believe.
Before we started recording, Mara held up the first paperback edition of my 1988 book, Combating Cult Mind Control. I was delighted to discover that she had followed my work for years. Listening to her and talking in this interview made me wish we had connected long ago.
Mara spent a decade working in advertising and television before questioning what she was helping accomplish. As she told me, getting people to watch more television could not be all she was supposed to do with her life. She returned to school, studied with Neil Postman, and earned a doctorate in media ecology, which examines how communication technologies change society. She has written numerous books and teaches at my alma mater.
Her background helps her explain what many of us encounter every day without fully understanding: the planning behind the pitch.
A social media post may look spontaneous. A recommendation may feel like advice from a friend. A community may appear to have formed entirely around shared interests. Mara asks us to look more closely at the commercial arrangements and incentives behind those experiences.
One of her most useful ideas is the “anxiety economy.”
We often hear that platforms compete for our attention. Mara argues that this description leaves out a crucial part of the business model. Anxiety can keep us engaged. We scroll because we are worried, encounter more upsetting material, and keep scrolling in search of relief. Along the way, advertisers have more opportunities to reach us.
The proposed relief may be another video, a purchase, a course, or a membership. The underlying message is familiar: something is wrong with your life, and someone has what you need to fix it.
For someone who studies undue influence, that pattern deserves close attention. Making people feel inadequate or afraid can make an offered solution more compelling. When the same source repeatedly intensifies the distress and presents itself as the answer, we need to pause and examine the relationship.
Mara also explained how branding reaches beyond the qualities of a product. A brand can acquire a story, a set of values, and a community. Buying it can become a way to express who you are.
There is nothing inherently wrong with caring about a company’s values or enjoying a product with other people. During our conversation, I emphasized that distinction. I even told Mara about being interviewed for The Cult of Mac book, admitting that I had only used Apple products since 1982.
Enthusiasm alone does not establish authoritarian control.
My Influence Continuum© looks at the movement from healthy, ethical influence toward destructive, authoritarian influence. We need to ask what actually happens within a relationship or group. Is the recruitment honest? Can people examine critical information? Can they disagree with the leader? Can they leave without threats, harassment, or fear?
My BITE Model of Authoritarian Control® examines behavior, information, thought, and emotional control. It helps make those questions concrete. A company having enthusiastic customers is one thing. A group pressuring people to reject critics, suppress doubts, and organize their lives around its demands raises very different concerns.
Mara makes an important distinction of her own. Her “cult + marketing continuum” describes varying degrees of extremism across brand communities, influencers, and multilevel marketing organizations. She is not claiming that liking a brand inevitably leads someone into a destructive cult.
She is asking us to recognize recurring methods—and to notice when the demands intensify.
Consider what marketers call the funnel. Mara described its progression from awareness to consideration, conversion, and loyalty. Eventually, an enthusiastic customer may become an evangelist for the product.
That language caught both of our attention.
The ethical questions concern what happens as someone moves through the process. What information is withheld? What promises are made? How much pressure is applied? Does participation remain a freely chosen activity, or does belonging become conditional on spending, recruiting, and demonstrating loyalty?
Multilevel marketing brought these questions into focus. Mara described watching The Vow, about NXIVM, and LuLaRich, about LuLaRoe, and recognizing similarities in the dynamics they portrayed.
An invitation may begin with friendship, encouragement, or the promise of financial independence. Over time, a person’s social life can become wrapped around the organization. Friends become prospects. Doubts can be treated as a bad attitude. Leaving can feel like losing a community as well as an income opportunity.
We discussed that people occupying different levels of an organization may have very different experiences. Someone enjoying success may sincerely assume that people below them are doing well, too. Their confidence can make their recruitment persuasive even when they do not understand the harm others are experiencing.
This is one reason I keep challenging the assumption that only unintelligent people get recruited.
I was a curious student who loved books and considered myself an independent thinker. I did not see myself as someone looking for a leader to obey. Yet I was vulnerable to attention and affection at a difficult, lonely moment.
Intelligence does not tell us whether a person has been given accurate information. Nor does it eliminate our need for connection.
Mara and I explored a related disagreement when she raised the metaphor of cult members wanting to sit in the back seat while someone else takes the wheel. I pushed back. That did not describe who I was before my recruitment.
The obedience I developed in the Moonies needs to be understood in the context of what happened to me: deception, sleep deprivation, indoctrination, and pressure to model myself on the leader. Explaining the outcome as something I had wanted all along misses that process.
This distinction matters for survivors. A theory about why people become involved should make room for their actual experiences. Otherwise, it can reinforce the shame and embarrassment they may still carry.
Shame was one of the most important subjects we discussed.
Mara observed that someone leaving an MLM or a controlling group needs somewhere to go. If the group has become their social world, and they expect humiliation from the people outside it, leaving becomes harder.
I know how painful “I told you so” can be. After I left the Moonies, judgment from others added to my embarrassment. It did not help me understand what had happened.
When I work with people coming out, I ask them to consider what they knew at the time they were recruited. What had been hidden? What had been distorted? If they had known then what they know now, would they have made the same decision?
Those questions help people examine the deception without reducing their entire identity to having been deceived. They can also begin to take responsibility for harm they caused while understanding the conditions that shaped their behavior.
We discussed the strengths former members bring to this work. Mara described former MLM participants who use their communication skills to expose the practices they once promoted. They understand the language, the promises, and the objections because they lived through them.
My concern is that those skills be used ethically. The purpose should be to help people evaluate information and make their own decisions. Informed consent, respect for conscience, and accountable leadership matter just as much when we believe our cause is a good one.
What can we do with these insights in everyday life?
Start by noticing how a message makes you feel. If you suddenly feel frightened, inadequate, or desperate to act, give yourself time before buying, sharing, or committing. Pay attention to the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) as marketers want you to believe there is scarcity, and if you don’t act right away, you will lose out. Ask who created the message, who benefits, and what information would help you evaluate it.
Pay attention to what happens when you question a claim. An honest seller should be able to tolerate scrutiny. A healthy community should leave room for disagreement and relationships outside the group.
Mara also reminded us that reacting to provocative content can help circulate it. Even sharing something to express outrage may deliver the attention its creator wanted. We can choose more deliberately what we help spread.
And when someone we care about is caught in a controlling environment, we can look for ways to preserve a respectful connection. In our conversation, I suggested beginning with shared memories or ordinary interests rather than making every interaction an argument. Listening carefully can help a person feel safe enough to speak honestly.
Hoodwinked offers readers a way to examine the marketing around them with greater awareness. Mara brings the perspective of someone who understands the industry from within and wants people to recognize its deceptive practices.
Our conversation left me thinking about how much education is needed—and how much becomes possible when people understand the methods being used on them. They can begin asking better questions. They can reconsider a commitment. They can seek out people who welcome their independent judgment.
I encourage you to explore Mara’s work and our conversation. Have you ever felt that a brand, influencer, or business opportunity was asking for more than your money? What helped you recognize the pressure?
It’s your mind. Only you should control it.
Links and further reading
Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults — book information and purchasing options