People can undergo a sudden change of thinking and loyalties under threat of death or intense social pressure and isolation from friends and family.

Brigham Young had 47 children, and over 50 women as wives.

High status males had multiple wives or additional mating opportunities in the ancestral environment.

Could people be trained to be less gullible? Or are you as stuck with gullibility as you are with skin colour?

Trying to control information in the network age is about as successful as pissing into the wind.

Cult recruiting methods based on dosing victims with the brain chemicals released during capture bonding would make cults even more of a problem than they are now.

As for leadership, I am the kind who leads reluctantly and more by example than anything else. Someone had to be on the incorporation papers as president.