On the first day of my first (and only, as things would turn out) cube-style office job, the HR manager said “oh, there’s one more thing you should know about [my immediate boss], she’s a [member of a very famous group many consider a cult].” This was at the worst point of the early-aughts recession, but even if it hadn’t been, I would have stuck with the gig: I find cults fascinating, which I suspect is always what people who are eventually indoctrinated into cults say.
A couple years later, I was working at the San Francisco Chronicle with folks who were on the tarmac at Jonestown, thus ending any desire I’d ever have to casually say “drank the Kool-Aid” (Zfrom the East Coast, I hear Sarah muttering “Flavor Aid”) when it comes to group belief. But that didn’t keep me from “collecting” cults, from NXIVM to the Branch Davidians to Heaven’s Gate.
I suspect you folks are into cults too, so I’m wondering which cults you collect? Why do you think cults capture our attention in a way that other criminal enterprises might not? And what takes on real life cults — either documentary, Ryan Murphied, or adapted — are the ones that have really stuck with you?
I've always had a soft spot for the Hare Krishna. They pop up in a lot of pop culture but are rarely explained in depth more than as a generic cult and bright colored clothing.
I found out a few years ago that a professor in one of the departments on campus was/is a member of CUT (Church Universal and Triumphant) and once left campus, during finals week, because the group called everyone to the compound to wait out the apocalypse. Other professors in the department had to scramble and give his students their final exams.
The Exclusive Brethren had a massive presence in my NZ suburb growing up, including a huge concrete monolithic church we all called the Bunker. The only comprehensive thing I've seen on them is the book In the Days of Rain: A Daughter, a Father, a Cult by Rebecca Stott, which is more literary memoir than juicy tell all but does have some eye popping moments. There was a chilling essay recently on Medium about a "Facebook cult" of about a dozen people, I think it's the combination of the scary, outrageous, and mundane that is so fascinating to me. Of course Scientology is the one with the best worst press: loved Remini's Troublemaker, Gibney's documentary, but my favourite is probably Kate Bornstein 's memoir A Queer and Pleasant Danger. It's about more than her life in Scientology but her time in Sea Org with none other than L. Ron running the ship was fascinating.
Scientology, LDS, Jehovah's Witnesses, the uber-patriarchal sect of Roman Catholicism called Lamb of God, Moonies, and that messianic-semitic cult 12 Tribes that manufactures and sells fresh-cured yerba mate (which is delicious, I hate to say). And the one called Children of God, that River Phoenix and his family were in. And basically all MLM companies. I love reading about all of those. But only when people have escaped and don't believe in it anymore. I find it way too depressing to hear from believers.
As a child my parents were religious "seekers." We bounced around from congregation to congregation for the first 11 years of my life. I think they were looking for a sort of utopian alternative to the religious upbringing of their childhoods. My dad was raised Presbyterian, very buttoned up and conservative, and when he got "radicalized" by the civil rights movement in the 1960s, he found the church didn't mirror his values. My mom grew up Baptist in West Virginia coal country and wanted to get as far away from the toil of that upbringing as she could, both physically and spiritually. Anyway, there was one "fringy" community we were a part of for a little while that in retrospect was borderline cult-y in that the pastor was convinced she could heal herself of cancer but also she needed a bunch of money from the congregation to do so. My parents were wise enough to know this was a bad scene and we left. Soon after we began attending a Quaker (Society of Friends) meeting and ended up sticking with that. I went to a Quaker college where I learned a lot more about religious traditions outside the mainstream (Amish, Mennonite, Brethren, etc.). I wouldn't define these groups as cults, but I did begin to get really interested in how people separate themselves from the rest of society in the name of religion, and from there it wasn't a far leap to get into cult territory. I love cult memoirs (have a whole Goodreads shelf dedicated to them) and I love the intersection of cults and true crime and there is lots of fodder there with the World of Faith Fellowship, LDS, Scientology, JW, Jonestown, the really insular Hasidic sects, The Family International, etc.
You guys are so much more cult familiar than I am; I’m sort of in awe. Word of Faith fascinates me, as does Scientology, the Family, Westboro Baptist Church and the People’s Temple. I was going to ask the group whether you felt all cults have a religious component and then I saw Margaret’s MLM comment. I never thought of an MLM as a cult, but it could be considered that way. However, I still think that the strongest cults manifest religiously. For some reason, that tie is overwhelmingly compelling. I might be able to walk away from Herbalife, but not the afterlife.
Why are we so fascinated? But there for the grace of God, a decent upbringing, access to science and leftist/NPR/PBS media (sorry about the leftist part, just trying to get ahead of anyone trying to disparage my beloved NPR and PBS. Akin to that idea of self-deprecation. In other words, if you call yourself ugly first, you take the wind of our their sails) and the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time, that could be any one of us. A lot of my life has been spent being tangential to other's close brushes. I'm sure one day it will be my turn. Or not. So far not.
I've always had a soft spot for the Hare Krishna. They pop up in a lot of pop culture but are rarely explained in depth more than as a generic cult and bright colored clothing.
I found out a few years ago that a professor in one of the departments on campus was/is a member of CUT (Church Universal and Triumphant) and once left campus, during finals week, because the group called everyone to the compound to wait out the apocalypse. Other professors in the department had to scramble and give his students their final exams.
The Exclusive Brethren had a massive presence in my NZ suburb growing up, including a huge concrete monolithic church we all called the Bunker. The only comprehensive thing I've seen on them is the book In the Days of Rain: A Daughter, a Father, a Cult by Rebecca Stott, which is more literary memoir than juicy tell all but does have some eye popping moments. There was a chilling essay recently on Medium about a "Facebook cult" of about a dozen people, I think it's the combination of the scary, outrageous, and mundane that is so fascinating to me. Of course Scientology is the one with the best worst press: loved Remini's Troublemaker, Gibney's documentary, but my favourite is probably Kate Bornstein 's memoir A Queer and Pleasant Danger. It's about more than her life in Scientology but her time in Sea Org with none other than L. Ron running the ship was fascinating.
Scientology, LDS, Jehovah's Witnesses, the uber-patriarchal sect of Roman Catholicism called Lamb of God, Moonies, and that messianic-semitic cult 12 Tribes that manufactures and sells fresh-cured yerba mate (which is delicious, I hate to say). And the one called Children of God, that River Phoenix and his family were in. And basically all MLM companies. I love reading about all of those. But only when people have escaped and don't believe in it anymore. I find it way too depressing to hear from believers.
As a child my parents were religious "seekers." We bounced around from congregation to congregation for the first 11 years of my life. I think they were looking for a sort of utopian alternative to the religious upbringing of their childhoods. My dad was raised Presbyterian, very buttoned up and conservative, and when he got "radicalized" by the civil rights movement in the 1960s, he found the church didn't mirror his values. My mom grew up Baptist in West Virginia coal country and wanted to get as far away from the toil of that upbringing as she could, both physically and spiritually. Anyway, there was one "fringy" community we were a part of for a little while that in retrospect was borderline cult-y in that the pastor was convinced she could heal herself of cancer but also she needed a bunch of money from the congregation to do so. My parents were wise enough to know this was a bad scene and we left. Soon after we began attending a Quaker (Society of Friends) meeting and ended up sticking with that. I went to a Quaker college where I learned a lot more about religious traditions outside the mainstream (Amish, Mennonite, Brethren, etc.). I wouldn't define these groups as cults, but I did begin to get really interested in how people separate themselves from the rest of society in the name of religion, and from there it wasn't a far leap to get into cult territory. I love cult memoirs (have a whole Goodreads shelf dedicated to them) and I love the intersection of cults and true crime and there is lots of fodder there with the World of Faith Fellowship, LDS, Scientology, JW, Jonestown, the really insular Hasidic sects, The Family International, etc.
Sorry this turned into a mini memoir!
You guys are so much more cult familiar than I am; I’m sort of in awe. Word of Faith fascinates me, as does Scientology, the Family, Westboro Baptist Church and the People’s Temple. I was going to ask the group whether you felt all cults have a religious component and then I saw Margaret’s MLM comment. I never thought of an MLM as a cult, but it could be considered that way. However, I still think that the strongest cults manifest religiously. For some reason, that tie is overwhelmingly compelling. I might be able to walk away from Herbalife, but not the afterlife.
Why are we so fascinated? But there for the grace of God, a decent upbringing, access to science and leftist/NPR/PBS media (sorry about the leftist part, just trying to get ahead of anyone trying to disparage my beloved NPR and PBS. Akin to that idea of self-deprecation. In other words, if you call yourself ugly first, you take the wind of our their sails) and the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time, that could be any one of us. A lot of my life has been spent being tangential to other's close brushes. I'm sure one day it will be my turn. Or not. So far not.