In the middle of Chapter V, Singer says-

Cults are also reminiscent of a jack-in-the-box- a pretty, innocuous-looking container, when opened, surprises you with a pop-out figure, often a scary one. Similarly, surprising and frightening things pop out over the course of membership in a cult. What you first see is not what’s inside.”

            I admit, as I have discussed in my books, AMORC, is different than many cults that rely on personal recruiting. The genius of H. Spencer Lewis is that he was able to map out a very effective recruiting methodology that generally relied on advertising. In this way, you could say that he was a mad genius when it came to apply mind control or hypnotic techniques to advertising. His acumen for hypnosis and the subliminal effects on the human mind and body is amply demonstrated in his book, Mental Poisoning, which I have already reviewed.
            When you look at any of the early Rosicrucian ads, you are not looking at an ordinary advertisement for a product or service, you are looking at a recruiting poster, the first part of a series of events that cults use to land their victims. These stages are amply described in Singer’s chapter, “Recruiting New Members.”
            The reason that cults are like jack-in-the-box is that they are so pretty on the outside. I would say that AMORC is not so much pretty as it is enticing for someone who believes there may indeed be secrets in the universe that can accelerate their ability to prosper and grow into a powerful understanding of the meaning of life. These secrets also endow a member with extraordinary powers- telepathy, ability to travel out of the body, the ability to influence others for your own benefit, extraordinary healing powers, etc.  Also, why not join a group that consisted of people like Rene Descartes, Benjamin Franklin, Sir Isaac Newton and Michael Faraday? That is, perhaps, a somewhat limited niche because not everyone wants the Truth accompanied by extraordinary powers and a heritage of some of the most famous thinkers and inventors in the world. But, as Lewis has succeeded in creating such a membership, the niche was large enough to create a nice little prosperous cult for almost a century based a great deal on membership fees and some weekly largesse of members would add a few dollars to a collection box or cede some of their estate to AMORC after their death.

            According to Singer, many people in cults are recruited by friends and family. She quotes a survey, probably from the mid-90s, which states that out of 381 former members of 101 different cultic groups, 66 percent stated that that their initial contact with their group came through a friend or relative.” I would very much doubt that AMORC’s recruitment from what you might call “strong ties” (friends or relatives) instead of “weak ties” (people you don’t know well or strangers). Nonetheless, it is probably a component of their membership.

            In most cults, if the recruitment isn’t accomplished by someone you know, it can be done by a professional recruiter. In this case, these recruiters pull no stops in their use of deception to nab a new member. They aim at the vulnerable- those “between important affiliations, between commitments to work, school, or life in general, and second, being even slightly depressed or a bit lonely.” These types of people feel under stress- and, in the case of AMORC, I certainly was apprehensive about the kind of jobs I could get out of school.

            Another interesting statistic extracted from the study I have already quoted, 43% of the 381 cult members formerly cited were students- with 10% in high school, 27% in college and 6% in graduate school. Students of all of these categories are going to go into an important transition when they graduate from their category and are undoubtedly going to be apprehensive.

            This was certainly my case, a chink in my psychological armor, that lured me into a cult for over two decades.
            Caveat Emptor- Let the buyer beware!