I have zero sympathy for cult victims
Not excusing cult leaders but I have zero sympathy for someone so stupid they would fall into a cult.
share1.) Being "stupid" isn't a crime, or something people asked for.
2.) From what I've seen, people who are drawn to participate in cults are quite altruistic and well-meaning people, initially. Often they've studied philosophy and/or religion. They're (lost) people looking for "answers".
3.) Cults don't invite you to enter with a big sign that reads, "Hi! We're a Cult!" These groups either hide behind a fake front (like $cientology being a church) or, perhaps more interestingly, begin as something else, more benign, only gradually growing over years into something more rigid, controlling and sicker. For instance, this particular group started out merely as a meditation group exploring spirituality. It was the members' bad luck to fall in with someone who was knowingly deceptive, manipulative, and narcissistic.
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I thought many cults learned from the Hare Krishnas that many people are turned off by an outward appearance that is foreign/alien threatening.
Thus many cult leaders use self-help and personal power/actualization to lure unsuspecting potential members in the group.
Thus it may start out with yoga, meditation and stress relief classes seminars and then group spiritual meetings and then retreats, etc...
A gradual process of indoctrination, manipulation and brainwashing.
For me, the linchpin and the turning point for an individual in this particular group to cross from an individual seeking spirituality and enlightenment to a cult member was the leader's introduction of "service" to that member.
While at the beginning, "serivce" appears to be benign and altruistic, the cult members were coerced into non consensual work by manipulation and "service"-- as the service morphed from a member's goal a spiritual enlightenment thru serving the community and others-- to serving the "master."