At What Point is Influence Considered Negative?

March 15, 2022

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I’ve been thinking about what to say and share this week. 

My hesitation in sharing a specific message is due to a hyper focus on the power of influence, given all I’ve talked about in my last two blogs.

Essentially Bentinho Massaro is being called out for his influence over others based on his messaging and his agreed upon position of authority in his community. This has been deemed a cult by whistleblowers and outsiders alike.

I don’t fancy myself an “influencer” (nor do I have a social media following that would be anywhere near saying I was one), but my whole point in showing up here and on social media is to share messages regarding how I see the world in hopes it serves you in your journey.

This is sharing a message intended to influence how you see yourself, the world, life, etc. Granted, I give you the space to resonate with it or not.

Influence is more available than ever in today’s world. The question is, “at what point does it become unhealthy?” 

In other words, at what point is it considered “cult-like” in a way that’s safe to partake in or an actual cult that’s considered “dangerously unhealthy”?

Lots of social media followings are built on people resonating with an account holder’s way of seeing, interacting and being in the world.

People like myself show up as messengers, advocates and proponents of a particular way in which to see the world in hopes that it resonates with others who are able to find benefit.

Some do this by sharing their process for overcoming a particular struggle which often includes a new way of seeing the world that now serves as their foundational message. Then, people with a similar struggle tune in, finding benefit.

Others share the beautiful life they are living with the beliefs and actions that helped them create it, which attracts others who are interested in doing the same thing in their life.

This is all influence.

Some say an online reach through social media is the new breeding ground for building cults and point to massive social media followings as examples of groups of people desiring to see in the same way flocking together.

Connecting to certain people’s social media accounts based on how they see the world is no different than attending a church or self-help seminar where you hear messages that resonate. 

This has also been a breeding ground for cults, but it doesn’t take away from the millions of gatherings of this nature who have pure intent.

Again, “at what point does influence become unhealthy?” 

Is it when it pulls you from family and friends who think differently than the new direction you’re beginning to think in as is often said by family members of people who have gotten sucked into cults? 

If so, with that reasoning, it would mean that challenging any old conditioning would be classified as a bad thing since it would pull you from those who relate to the world through an old conditioning you have challenged. 

I personally don’t think this can be the dividing line regarding classifying influence as healthy or unhealthy. But if it is, everything I share could fall into this category.

At what point is something considered “too fringe” from mainstream thinking? 

Years ago the idea of challenging limiting beliefs would have been considered too fringe yet it’s quite acceptable now (and something my work advocates).

But how far can one be led down a path of challenging their limited beliefs before it’s considered unhealthy or even scary?

According to Bentinho Massaro’s and NXIVM’s whistleblowers, the leader (as well as the chain of command, in the case with NXIVM, for a women’s society in the inner circle) used a person’s commitment to the life they desired or commitment to the version of themself they desired to know, as well as a commitment to a greater mission of helping humanity, to manipulate people into pushing through more and more barrier’s which, for some in the deep inner circle, led them into situations that normalized abuse such that they believed it was for their own growth (and “the mission”). 

This was also described as putting people into “dissociative states”, where they lost all inner sense of who they are, since they were taught to override their fear (intuition was flipped around to be considered “fear speaking”) in favor of the trust they’d placed in the leader’s good intent to “lead them to what they said they desired”. 

They also cleverly set up “shame cycle’s” to create a scenario where people constantly blamed themselves for falling short of what they said they were committed to achieving, which contributed to the “dissociate state” and ease of further manipulation. 

It’s important to note that both Bentinho and NXIVM attracted high performance, purpose oriented individuals yet this level of manipulation was still possible.

In seeing my own work through the lens of these questions, here’s where I’ve landed…

I am an advocate of challenging our fear/limited thinking/lack-based beliefs as it relates to a belief in worthiness regarding how we see ourself and/or our capacity to pursue the desires of our heart.

However, I’m NOT an advocate of pushing someone past a barrier they’re uncomfortable with. 

My approach has nothing to do with challenging barriers for the sake of challenging barriers. 

In other words, I’m not a proponent of bringing up or addressing boundaries around things that have no bearing on or relationship to a situation you’re facing or a dream you’re pursuing (which is what I believe happens in cults as a way of accepting and participating in behavior you would have never considered prior to being hooked into the beliefs cultivated by the cult leader).

And I’m NOT an advocate of creating an environment and/or group dynamic where certain people are thought to be special because they challenged more in themself/pushed through more uncomfortable barriers while others are thought to be less special or not as advanced because they couldn’t push through the same degree of challenging barriers. 

I’m, of course, NOT an advocate for overriding your intuition by re-framing it as “fear”.

Again, I have no interest in challenging boundaries and barriers for simple sake of doing so. 

I keep it pretty simple by focusing on helping you believe in your worth/worthiness by helping you change how you’re relating to whatever is causing you to feel unworthy. This can be in relation to a past encounter, relationship, situation and/or current circumstances or it can be in relation to your ability to believe you are worthy of pursuing the desires of your heart. 

However, I want to note that an article attempting to expose Bentinho Massaro as the leader of a cult a few years back used the idea that vulnerable people were finding their worthiness through him speaking words into a video they were watching where he told anyone tuning in they were worthy and he loved them. 

They were connecting their worthiness to hearing him say it versus using what he was saying as a pointer to know their worthiness from within.

To be clear, my intention in helping you believe in your own worthiness is for you to know it for yourself. It’s NOT intended for you to connect it to me saying it to you as that would be relying on an outside source to know it.

The point the article was trying to make would not have convinced me Bentinho was a cult leader (it’s still not what convinced me, but it has shown me people are vulnerable to hearing messages in unhealthy ways).

Additionally, the idea that a new thinking is dangerous because someone no longer sees as their family or old friends see and think is not automatically indicative of a negative influence, since there’s so much leeway for both good and bad to occur with respect to the manner in which someone moves from the way they used to think/their old circle still thinks (though it’s something family members of someone who is in a cult would say occurred).     

As an example, a woman with a middle class background around finances, who decides to build a super successful (reputable) network marketing business is likely going to change her mind about the way life and money work for her. She’s going to look back and realize there’s a whole bunch of people she no longer thinks like. Did she join a cult because she embraced a new way of seeing and now is apart of a new group of women who think similar to her (and have created new lives to match this new thinking)? 

No, she didn’t. 

(In my exploration into the “cult-iverse” these last few weeks I realize there are some un-reputable network marketing businesses —NXIVM was considered a MLM structured company— that have been revealed to be cults. However, similar to religious gatherings, just because cults have been found in gatherings of this nature DOES NOT mean all gatherings of this nature are cults).

My point is, just because a new way of thinking moves you from the people you once related to through your old thinking does not automatically mean you’ve joined a cult. It could mean that but it doesn’t automatically confirm the existence of a cult.

Another example of something that comes across as “cult-like” but doesn’t automatically confirm the existence of something dangerous…

Just before my freshman semester at Texas A&M University I attended Fish Camp, something freshman attend to learn the culture and traditions associated with the university, where we come to describe our love for the university through the following statement: “From the outside looking in you can’t understand it, from the inside looking out, you can’t explain it”. 

This statement could easily explain any cult and would likely be the response of someone in a group who is accused of being in one.

But is it considered dangerous or unhealthy to partake in? Is there a dangerous, ulterior motive at play? 

I guess it depends on who you talk to…

As far as I know, parents of Aggies are not concerned with their kids attending a university where this statement explains the culture. Though when I think about how an Aggie Ring works to “signal” to others we’re apart of the same network/value set, etc. that does seem “a little bit culty” but not overtly dangerous.

However, diversity advocates would likely say this is problem-some, since it lends itself to “in-house” hiring over “outsiders”. This could be said of any fraternal type networking setup. The elite also network with the elite. If a dangerous agenda is being pushed through these tight networks, that should be looked into and considered.

(I’m not sure if I just discovered I was in a cult as an Aggie or not, but this still lends itself to the point that like-minded groups are everywhere; they just don’t blatantly have the stigma of “cult” attached to them and aren’t necessarily dangerous or unhealthy to partake in).

The statement used to describe Texas A&M’s culture can also be said for any self-help leader, educator or religious leader who has an impact on a group of people (or even a CEO of a company with a specific culture). 

I was recently at dinner with a group of soulful women who were singing the praises of someone who is a huge figure and leader in using science to “demystify the mystical”. One women had recently attended one of his seminars and the others were excited to do the same. There was talk of feeling a “pull” to return to the information over and over again, whether it be online videos or in person seminars. 

This type of “pull” to return to the information was also mentioned in the article on Bentinho I referenced above as evidence of the existence of a cult, since people spent hours watching videos he published on YouTube or training videos they purchased (the article’s author claimed the “hook into Bentinho’s world” was being used to escape their own reality). 

For me, this can’t be the only determining factor as anytime you want to change your mind about how you see the world, there’s going to be the need for some level of immersion into the “new way of seeing”. It’s something I recommend in my own work and have done in my own journey, whether it’s using affirmations to shift my mind from scarcity to abundance or reading material that helps me understand how to see myself as whole (as opposed to seeing through a perception of lack). 

Once a group is confirmed as a cult, many (probably all) of the above things apply. But this is in conjunction with a charismatic leader who has an impure intent. 

This person’s (or organization’s) intent is what leads everyone into a “dangerously unhealthy” situation. 

Regarding Bentinho and NXIVM, the teachings and mission of the group attract intelligent, high performing, well-intentioned, good hearted individuals who partake in trainings they deeply believe in and see benefit from. This creates an environment where everyone has agreed to see the world in a similar manner, deeply value, respect and admire the group’s leader and vision for the world (integrity is assumed based in this beautiful vision) and are so dedicated to the vision that they naturally begin to isolate from those who are not in the group. 

This, then, sets up a situation of “high group control” where a leader who lacks pure intent is able to manipulate a group of people who would otherwise be considered quite intelligent. 

Without proving the intent of the leader, people who are in a group like this are not going to be discouraged by an outsider who accuses the group of being a cult.

They know the group sees and thinks about the world in a way that’s different from mainstream thinking. And they believe this new way of seeing is benefitting not only them individually but the world at large.

As someone who believed in Bentinho Massaro’s teachings (which are not his own) and believed he had pure intent, an outsiders’s opinion of the teachings would not have convinced me something was amiss.

Deciphering intent is what matters the most, in my opinion and experience. This is also why whistleblowers are so helpful. They resonated with the message, then got exposed to the unfortunate ugliness behind the scenes, revealing an impure intent.

It’s not about easily jumping on a bandwagon of pointing fingers at something from the safe distance of having never understood why it resonated in the first place. This will scare off anyone on the periphery who doesn’t want to be associated with anything that might have the stigma of “cult” attached to it, but it won’t help the outer community who is already invested in the message and believing the intent of the teacher is pure.

This blog took off on two separate but related points. One was questioning when influence becomes negative and, thus, something to be concerned with. I offered as much as I could to help you decide if what I’m doing/where I’m coming from still resonates with you knowing, for some, it meets certain attributes of a cult. 

The other was challenging the more general attributes of a cult that outsiders use to prove the existence of one (when the leader’s intent hasn’t been proven to be sinister).

If a general definition of a cult comes down to a group of people who think similarly regarding the way in which they see the world, I don’t see how anyone is ever NOT in a cult (or multiple cults), because, unless you’ve fully overcome your capacity to be conditioned (which, by the way, is the definition of an awakened being), we’re all susceptible to some form of conditioning/influence. 

Regarding the teachings of the direct path, the main difference the cult leaders took as opposed to how I learned to apply the teachings is they were able to insert a “shame cycle” for not measuring up to one’s potential in place of the tool of forgiveness. 

They also reframed intuition as a fear that needed to be overcome (when intuition was actually sounding the alarm that something was amiss).

And, of course, there was deep social isolation, especially within the inner circle, to make it that much easier to manipulate people.

Every time I dive deeper into the “culti-verse”, I learn more about how this stuff works and it freaks me out since I share and teach on information that’s served as a similar entrance point to things that have turned out to be cults (NXIVM, Bentinho Massaro). Of course, the teachings were twisted based on their impure intent.

Sometimes this makes me want to stop sharing all together. 

And other times, I see this as a call to be a stronger messenger of light…

….which sounds “a little bit culty” in the wrong context (actually, everything sounds culty to me right now!).

Shanna