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

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

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

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.

Successful cult memes induce intense social interaction behaviour between cult members. This trips the attention detectors.

Attention is the way social primates measure status. It is highly rewarding because it causes the release of brain chemicals such as dopamine and endorphins.

People under the influence of cults is similar to that we observe in addicts. Typical behaviour for both includes draining bank accounts, neglecting children, destroying relations with family and losing interest in anything except the drug or cult.