The Netflix documentary series “How to Become a Cult Leader” is confusing, fascinating, and haunting in equal measure, living up to its title in almost every manner imaginable. That’s because it uses both exclusive interviews with important personalities and archive film to fully illuminate how even staunch sceptics can become seduced. One of them was Diane Benscoter, so if you just want to know more about her, her background, and where she stands right now, we’ve got the information you need.
Who is Diane Benscoter?
When aspiring writer Diane first saw members of The Unified Church (also known as The Moonies) in the early 1970s, she was immediately drawn to their strategy for recruiting new members. She said in the original, “I was walking down the street when someone handed me a banana with a flyer wrapped around it. “Walk for world peace, it read. The distance from Omaha to Des Moines is 150 miles. As a result, the then-17-year-old avowed cynic chose to join their 5-day march after smelling a narrative in it. However, not long after joining, she found herself surrounded by a devotion she had never experienced before.
“There would always be two people who would really be interested in my life walking with me,” Diane continued. They were interested in learning about my priorities and life goals. No one had ever paid me this kind of attention. She had no idea that she was actually being “love bombed,” a unique tactic meticulously used by the Moonies to start indoctrinating her as an unaware recruit, followed by church lectures about their ideologies/beliefs every evening.
Diane eventually had epiphanies about Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unified Church and a prominent Korean religious figure, being a messiah, which allowed her to more deeply connect with her group of companions during the times of these courses, it is true. When she finally met this more senior, presumably supernatural CEO, “all the members were crying; they ran and fell down at his feet and kissed his shoes,” she openly admitted in the play. He had her intrigued when he said, “It was like this beautiful scene of adoration.”
Diane was genuinely a young, idealistic girl who wanted to change the world while also attempting to fit in and feel like she belonged—exactly what the Moonies’ grabbed upon to get her to join. However, fortunately, this previously small-town youngster had her family protecting her, so they persistently worked to liberate her from the Moonies’ apparent “control” before finally managing to arrange a successful “deprogramming” session five years later – she was 21 when she left.
Diane came to the realisation that she had in reality been a member of a cult, one that undoubtedly had a business component. In episode 6 of the documentary series, she explained, “We were told we needed to raise money in order to construct a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth because that’s where the power lay. “[Moreover], the Unification Church placed a lot of emphasis on large gatherings, such mass weddings. They increased Moon’s profile so that he became the centre of attention. He craved widespread adulation, truly.
Where is Diane Benscoter Now?
After it was all over, Diane realised there might be numerous others like her, people whose fleeting moments of vulnerability somehow led them into religious groups, and she embarked on a mission to aid them in getting over it. She eventually found work at a cult rehabilitation facility, where she quickly became involved in deprogramming as well, albeit her early work in this field was completely unlawful because it involved involuntary deprogramming.
As a result, Diane spent a brief period of time in prison in 1988, which inspired her to give up deprogramming therapy and train as a psychological manipulator (whether in cults, gangs, hate groups, or terrorist organisations). And the former tech-help entrepreneur has now accomplished amazing success here; the author, facilitator, and speaker really has a Ted Talk, a YouTube Channel, a book entitled “Shoes of a Servant,” and she’s the founder/executive director of Antidote. She also has a book called “Shoes of a Servant.”
