10 Ways Cult of the Lamb Mimics Real-Life Cults

Just how much does Cult of the Lamb resemble real-life cults?

It’s hard not to ask yourself that question after enjoying Cult of the Lamb for a while.

After all, the game is devilishly fun and diabolically addictive. Anyone with a conscience would wonder whether it’s OK to have that much fun roleplaying a dark figure like a cult leader.

Running your own cult couldn’t possibly be that enjoyable… right?

For better or worse, I’ve never been a cult leader in real life, so I have no way of knowing.

What I do know is that Cult of the Lamb goes above and beyond just putting a veneer of “cultic chic” on its characters and environments.

Instead, the inner workings of cults are at the core of its gameplay.

But before we discuss how Cult of the Lamb mimics real-life cults, let’s cover the basics.

What Exactly is a Cult?

According to the American Psychological Association, the noun “cult” refers to:

“A religious or quasi-religious group characterized by unusual or atypical beliefs, seclusion from the outside world, and an authoritarian structure.”

APA Dictionary of Psychology, 2018.

Your following in Cult of the Lamb fits the bill, but this definition doesn’t offer a basis to compare our digital cult with real-life organizations.

It also fails to consider alternative types of cults that don’t have a religious or spiritual background.

These secular cults range from large nationalist organizations like Germany’s Nazi Party and the Worker’s Party of Korea to fringe political collectives such as QAnon.

Note: Some businesses also operate within a cult-like structure, mainly multi-level marketing schemes. Famous examples include Lularoe (women’s fashion) and Amway (beauty/health).

When identifying cults, it may be easier to look for certain characteristics instead of focusing on a single definition.

On her website, cult expert Dr. Janja Lalich offers an easy-to-grasp list of Characteristics Associated With Cults.

Another helpful resource is Steven Hassan’s BITE model of authoritarian control, which describes how organizations like cults manipulate followers through Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotion.

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton put it succinctly in his foreword for Margaret Singer’s Cults in Our Midst:

“First, all cults have a charismatic leader, who himself or herself increasingly becomes the object of worship (…). Second, in cults there occurs (…) what has been called “coercive persuasion” or “thought reform,” (…). And third, there is a pattern of manipulation and exploitation from above (…) and idealism from below (…).”

Jay Lifton, 1996.

After consulting these resources (among others), I’ve highlighted ten cult characteristics that showcase how Cult of the Lamb mimics real-life cults.

If you feel like a group you belong to has some of these characteristics, it doesn’t automatically make them a cult… but maybe it’s time to give it some thought.

10. Charismatic & Messianic Leader

The founding stones of cults like Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple or Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church are charismatic leaders with big ideas.

As Tim Reiterman explains in Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People (1982), the leader of the Peoples Temple started his career by delivering idealistic sermons advocating for racial equality and criticizing capitalism.

To unsuspecting onlookers, the man was a revolutionary saint.

Note: He even adopted an African-American child, a Korean child, and a Native American child, creating what he called the Rainbow Family. I guess the “red flag” concept hadn’t been invented in the 70s.

The Lamb is largely the same.

At first glance, they’re a glorious liberator meant to free the world from the yoke of the Bishops of the Old Faith. To the followers you rescue from sacrificial rituals, you’re the messiah.

Plus, nobody can deny how cute and charismatic The Lamb’s bleating is.

Yet both of these characters have darker, more selfish reasons for amassing a following. For the cult leader, followers are merely a resource to achieve their aims.

9. Beliefs Obey the Leader’s Needs

According to the BITE model, cults “require members to internalize the group’s doctrine as truth” (Hassan, 2023).

But where does this doctrine come from?

Usually, cult leaders choose a pre-established belief system, such as Christianity or Buddhism, and make subtle modifications to fit their agenda.

A classic example is the institution of polygamy so the leader can have multiple wives.

Note: I say “wives” because most cult leaders are men.

As Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven recounts, Mormon founder Joseph Smith instituted “celestial marriages” during the church’s early days to justify his own plural love.

The main Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints abandoned the practice around 1890, but some sects within Mormonism still do it.

A famous recent example is Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints (FLDS), who managed to marry over 78 wives (including teens) before being convicted in 2011.

Again, The Lamb is guilty of manipulating beliefs to suit their own interests as well. In fact, that’s a big part of the game and one of the most obvious ways CotL resembles a real-life cult.

Whenever you wish to institute a new doctrine, you’re given two (often contradictory) choices and pick whichever suits you best.

Have too many dead bodies lying around? Make your followers into cannibals!

Faith is dropping because you’ve sacrificed too many followers? Teach them that dying for the cause is the greatest and holiest achievement!

And regarding plural marriages, you don’t even have to lift a finger. By default, the Lamb can marry as many followers as they want.

It’s a wonder this didn’t get an M rating.

8. Exalted Ends Justify Questionable Means

The whole point of manipulating beliefs is convincing followers that whatever the leader asks them to do is justified—even holy.

An obvious real-life example is Jim Jones’s “Troops”: loyal followers he’d send on diverse missions.

Some of it was mostly benign, such as spreading his teachings and recruiting new members.

But he’d also task them with digging up private information about other followers or prospective converts. This info would make manipulating them easier.

As described by Reiterman in Raven (1982), Jones even had one of his troops cosplay an elderly lady in a wheelchair during one of his services. He then “cured” the lady with his “godly gift,” allowing her to walk again and impressing the congregation.

Note: “Faith healing” and “psychic surgery” are still a favorite of scammers and cult leaders nowadays. If you’re interested in this pseudoscientific practice, check out John of God: The Crimes of a Spiritual Healer on Netflix.

Being asked to do this would make any normal person doubt Jones’s legitimacy, but once you’re brainwashed, anything goes.

There are countless examples of The Lamb doing this to his followers, including sacrificing them to acquire more power or sending them on dangerous missions to get resources.

My favorite example is how you repeatedly harvest SIN from your followers despite knowing it will consume them. Their suffering is just a minor cost of beautifying your cathedral.

7. Objectives: Grow Bigger & Wealthier

Experts agree: a telltale sign of a cultish organization is their obsession with gaining followers and accumulating resources.

Most religious organizations aim to spread their teachings to more people, but the point is to help converts live better. Ideally, gaining resources is subservient to that aim.

For harmful cults, it’s the other way around. Their teachings are just tools to gain followers so their leader(s) can grow wealthier and more powerful.

Jim Jones preached equality for all classes, races, and sexualities. He also ran food programs and similar services for senior citizens and ex-convicts.

It wasn’t so much because of his preoccupation with the downtrodden but because it made him popular with marginalized and, therefore, vulnerable people. It was also a hit with college-educated liberals, which helped a ton.

Jones’s hypocrisy is made evident by how his “inner circle” was mostly wealthy white men, as Reiterman reveals in Raven.

How you grow your congregation is another way that Cult of the Lamb mirrors real-life cults.

Like Jones, you provide some services to the downtrodden: you liberate them from their captors, save them from being sacrificed, and give them an increasingly lovely place to live.

But it’s all in your own interest. More followers = more resources = more power. Any resources spent on improving their lives are merely investments for future returns.

6. The leader is Emotionally Manipulative (Love Bombing vs. Terrorizing)

Sometimes, one of your new followers in Cult of the Lamb will be terrified of you upon arrival. They’ll even scream and run away whenever you approach them.

The best way to deal with this is to reassure them over the course of a few days until they’re no longer scared. Maybe give them a gift or two. Better to be loved than to be feared… right?

The thing is, you can also keep bullying the little guy with essentially no drawbacks. They’ll build up Loyalty just the same, and they might even shit themselves whenever you bleat at them. Free fertilizer!

A similar love vs. abuse cycle is employed in cults to make followers more loyal. It’s the same thing that happens in abusive relationships. Psychologists call it “trauma bonding”.

The BITE model describes this method of emotional control as follows:

“Extremes of emotional highs and lows. Love bombing and praise one moment, then declaring you are a horrible sinner.”

Steven Hassan, 2023.

5. Followers are Isolated & Micro-Managed

In 1977, Jim Jones and hundreds of his followers relocated from the United States to the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, deep in the Guyanese jungle.

Better known as Jonestown, the enclave was advertised as a communal utopia where Jones and his followers could fully commit to “apostolic socialism” in practice.

As often happens with socialist utopias, reality proved a little different. Passports were seized, food was scarce, and work hours were grueling. Plus, most of their free time was dedicated to communist indoctrination.

Stardew Valley, this was not.

After setting up my homestead in Cult of the Lamb, I couldn’t help but remember Jonestown. No food, inadequate housing, terrible hygiene—and you bet those followers were slaving away all day.

Not all cults manage to get their followers to relocate to isolated outposts in the jungle, but they all seek to control member behavior as much as possible.

The BITE model includes the following items under Behavior Control:

• Dictate where (…) the member lives.
• Dictate when, how, and with whom the member has sex.
• Control clothing and hairstyles.
• Regulate diet (food and drink, hunger or fasting).
• Manipulation or deprivation of sleep.
• Restrict leisure.
• Major time spent with group indoctrination or rituals.
• Impose rigid rules and regulations.

If you’ve played Cult of the Lamb, this is bound to sound familiar. It reads like my to-do list whenever I return to camp from a crusade.

Your followers only sleep if you let them, they’ll eat Bowls of Poop if you tell them to, and the Sins of the Flesh update allows you to tell them to procreate with whomever you want.

All in service of the cult.

4. Mind-Altering Practices to Increase Loyalty

Cult leaders employ a variety of techniques to achieve control of their followers.

These practices break down the subject’s ability to think clearly, edging them toward dissociation. In this vulnerable state, it’s easier to brainwash them into loyal followers.

As psychotherapist and author Sharon K. Farber writes for Psychology Today:

“These techniques include sleep and food deprivation, drumming, chanting, lecturing on and on for hours, flashing lights, spinning around in circles, all of which assault the senses and break down a person’s ability to think.”

Sharon K. Farber, 2014.

You’ll notice parallels to these practices all over Cult of the Lamb.

The basic way to increase a follower’s Loyalty to The Lamb is to do a little dance while chanting in unison. Doing this daily can be a lot of work, but it pays off as they become more loyal.

Followers must also attend sermons and participate in various rituals, which increases the group’s Faith in The Lamb and levels up each follower’s Loyalty.

The consumption of mind-numbing substances is also represented in Cult of the Lamb through a Brainwashing Ritual involving psychedelic “Menticide Mushrooms.”

Note: The Collins Dictionary defines “Menticide” as “the destruction or undermining of a person’s mental independence in order to alter his or her beliefs.” That’s… pretty damn accurate.

Similar tactics are employed by real-life cults, too.

The Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo was known to use LSD, meth, and a form of truth serum as a tool to indoctrinate their followers. Charles Manson—leader of the Manson Family cult—also distributed LSD and other drugs at early gatherings.

3. Hierarchy Based on Loyalty

A cult leader’s raison d’etre is accumulating power and controlling others. In this context, it’s easy to see why loyalty is an important value in cults.

Cult expert Janja Lalich describes this commitment as one of their main characteristics:

“The group displays an excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader, and regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.”

Janja Lalich, 2023.

Most of the time, the entire group’s hierarchical structure is based on loyalty and commitment. You might not be the most competent follower, but you’ll climb the ranks if you’re fully committed to the leader.

Of course, the same thing happens in Cult of the Lamb.

Upon entering the cult, your followers are all equal, but they soon start distinguishing themselves depending on their level of Loyalty.

Only true believers (who reach Level 10) can ascend to become The Lamb’s disciples through the Rite of Discipleship. This gives them a degree of authority, made evident by how they’ll imprison dissenters in your absence.

Plus, they get a cool halo. Lambpilled cultmaxxers, the lot of them.

2. Extreme Treatment of Dissenters

So, you’re finally fed up with The Lamb and have decided to become a dissenter?

How about you… don’t. No, really.

Sure, you get to air your feelings about The Lamb’s manipulative nature and less-than-perfect leadership, but you also put a giant target on your head.

Dissenters cause chaos within the cult. They lower the cult’s Faith, interrupt other followers while they’re working, and might even take your money and leave.

The game gives you two options whenever a dissenter appears: you either put them in the pillory for a few days to “re-educate” them or you murder/sacrifice them.

Note: Eventually, you can bribe them with a Magnificent Mixed Meal, but that’s beside the point.

Real-life cult leaders are also extremely threatened by dissenters. Not only can they disrupt the “harmony” of the cult, but they might leave and reveal their wrongdoings to the authorities.

As such, cults often react with extreme prejudice against dissenters.

Jonestown once again serves as a prime example of this behavior.

According to Reiterman’s Raven, Jim Jones used to subject anyone who went against him to beatings and other forms of punishment/humiliation.

One of the most macabre punishments was to put them in sensory deprivation boxes, which slowly chipped away at their sanity (and desire to fight back).

At that point, anyone who tried to leave Jonestown was putting their life on the line.

This became evident to the general public on November 18, 1978, when Jones’ “Red Brigade” opened fire on a group of defectors trying to leave Guyana with US Congressman Leo Ryan.

Regrettably, one defector, three journalists, and Congressman Ryan were killed in the attack.

1. Followers Are Given a New Identity

Something interesting about Cult of the Lamb is how you can change almost everything about a new convert. This was, in fact, the whole reason why I decided to write this article.

The game allows you to change the convert’s species, appearance, clothing, and even their name. Only their most basic personality traits (e.g., Zealous, Cowardly) are left intact, reminding you that these were once sovereign individuals.

I’m getting MGSV: The Phantom Pain flashbacks just thinking about it.

The way you give these followers an entirely new identity as they are “reborn” into the cult is possibly the most sophisticated way Cult of the Lamb resembles real-life cults.

As Margaret Singer explains in Cults in Our Midst, people don’t just “become” cultists.

Instead, the cult uses diverse psychological strategies to induce an identity crisis. Then, a new identity is produced through social manipulation that weaponizes groupthink.

“Another name, a completely new identity, and very little connection to your past—these are strong influences that keep people bound to the group.”

Margaret Singer, 1996.

Fortunately, there’s still hope for real-life cultists, unlike our furry followers in Cult of the Lamb.

Singer says the new personality (or pseudo-identity) doesn’t replace the old. Instead, it exists alongside it, allowing the victim to “blend in” and survive in a cultic context.

Once they’re out of the cult, the pseudo-identity starts to fade—though some counseling with a cult deprogramming expert definitely helps.

“It is the cult environment that produces and keeps in place the cult identity.”

Margaret Singer, 1996.

Works Cited

• “Cult” dictionary.apa.com. American Psychological Association, 2018.
• “Menticide” collinsdictionary.com. HarperCollins Publishers, 2024.
• Cults in Our Midst: The Hidden Menace in Our Everyday Lives. Singer, M., & Lalich, J. Jossey-Bass, 1996.
• Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Reiterman, Tim. E. P. Dutton, 1982.
• Characteristics Associated With Cults. janjalalich.com. Janja Lalich, 2024.
• Dr. Steven Hassan’s BITE Model of Authoritarian Control. freedomofmind.com. Freedom of Mind Resource Center, Inc., 2023.
• Cults and the Mind-Body Connection. psychologytoday.com. Farber, Sharon K. Sussex Publishers, 2014.