Dan focuses his article on shame, its role in cult recruitment and the way it obstructs recovery from cult-related trauma. He describes questions asked about cult survivors’ “pathology” and ends with a call to recognize that what cult survivors have in common with all trauma survivors is far less “other” and “far more simply human than otherwise.” Presenting Freudian and Lacanian perspectives, I will showcase two different models of love, and underline the developmental underpinnings of the deep-rooted tendency to surrender to a Big Other. This will portray the cult-joining tendency as a universal human characteristic that touches deep-seated memories of helplessness and dependencies we carry in our bodies, alongside the search for a strong, omniscient parent-image. Mourning, learning the workings of being an orphan and the art of loving a lacking other as lacking subject - are offered as antidotes to our human cult-joining tendency.