There are things in my past I prefer not to revisit, as mentioned in comments on the previous post. ‘Cult’ comes from the Latin cultus, worship. In certain contexts it refers to “a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister”.
I was involved with a cult for longer than I care to admit. What can I say in a small space like this? Treat it lightly as tragicomedy? That would be poor entertainment and hardly edifying, just masochistic self-mockery, wailing and gnashing of teeth to no useful purpose. Yet there is still something I can say.
I got this from Natalie Goldberg, who writes about writing, via Rebb’s blog (thanks to both):
The deepest secret in the heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world.
I concur. Hate does not make for literature. When I am not ‘loving the world’, I cannot write—not anything worthwhile. First love, then words, then conscious thought (where necessary) to shape the words into clarity. To love the world I must love my own self; for I find myself an inseparable part of the world, positioned at its exact centre. So it is rather important that I don’t see myself as a damned fool, for then everything is spoiled. That’s why I don’t want to give you details of my sojourn in cultishness. And yet there are insights to share: ones which came to me after I escaped and reclaimed my own self.
Cults exist behind a membrane that isolates their devotees from the world’s wholeness. At a certain ranch in Waco, Texas, the membrane was physical, with the inmates on one side and armed government agents circling them for 50 days of a siege. My cult wasn’t wacko like Waco. Any sense of cohesion and community got washed out over the years, till there were only threads of gossamer. These were still strong enough to stop you getting in till you accepted its terms and became an initiate. After that, they were still sticky enough to keep you in, the bonds invisible, couched in subtly-coded rhetoric. (Correction: most did leave. They jumped ship while the shore was still in sight, a short swim away. Fools like me stayed for the long haul.)
Inside the membrane, you find yourself blessed above the ordinary. But if ever you leave—the idea nags in the back of your mind—you’re certain you’ll be damned, in some hell the merely ignorant could never know. The subtly-coded rhetoric tells you how to think, but remains publicly deniable. It’s not ‘they’ who tell you what to think. You are co-creator of the myth; and yet you are in constant risk of heresy. You cannot see that you are in a cult. The cults are all out there! In here, you feel lucky not to have fallen for their snares. You are in the small band of those who follow the True Way.
To be on the true way is wonderful but burdensome. Conscience nags you to spread the good news, especially to those you care about most. When you go beyond acquaintance and make a new friend—at work say—the sense of duty wells up, you’ll look for an opportunity to share. You may discover that your new friend backs off as if from a scorpion—and then that’s the end of that. A good true friend will behave differently, pretending not to have heard what you said; will quickly change the subject, if ever you mention it again. To be shunned is small stuff, compared with the martyrdom you’d readily endure for the sake of your true way.
What drove you to punish yourself in this manner? It was the promise of a free ride. You were trudging along the road in all weathers, not knowing clearly where it would lead, weakened by fatigue and hunger. Unconsciously you had sent out a prayer. Hitchhiking never occurred to you, till the seeming kindness of a stranger touched a spot in you. ‘Shall I accept this ride?’ You have to answer yes or no. Well, kindness is a powerful drug to the needy heart.
I speak metaphorically about the road and the hitch-hiking; yet for me the reality played out in a mirror-image. 40 years ago, in 1972, I was living a hippy lifestyle, and one day was driving my battered van (bought from a gypsy) back home to a commune in Norfolk. Somewhere near Cambridge, I stopped at a traffic light. The sliding door was secured open on the passenger side. A young man invited himself on board, immediately launching into his tale of a wonderful guru. Aspects of his discourse were clearly wild talk. I wasn’t convinced, in fact I thought him a little cracked, a trifle wacko. But then, he was 17, and perhaps his fasting, together with drug flashbacks, had made him light-headed. Weeks and years later, I saw him as the messenger sent in answer to my prayer. Well, I still do believe in messenger angels, kind of. And I can’t guarantee that I know better today. Perhaps I’m just luckier, and no longer needy.
If a cult may be compared to an infection, attacking a weakened organism with low immunity, that hitchhiker was the carrier who first infected me. I’m grateful to Gentleeye who (in a comment on my last) gave a link to ideas on ‘the bacterium of faith’. In an essay, Daniel Dennett says that the membrane (referred to above) exists to control information flow between the in-group and the out-group. So it creates a bubble of shared belief which resists the freer flow of ideas outside, which could undermine a cult’s continuing existence. He compares such groups to bacteria. It’s an immense help to our understanding, if we can see phenomena not in terms of good and evil, flaws in creation; but evolutionary advantage. And then we see that nature is not all competition, but mutual support too.
Bacteria can be pathogenic or useful, like gut flora. Says Wikipedia ‘Research suggests that the relationship between gut flora and humans is not merely commensal (a non-harmful coexistence), but symbiotic (living with one another in mutual support).’ (I’ve edited the quote slightly.) The nice bacteria help, the pathogenic ones can kill. Taking a wider view of Nature, it’s a damned good thing that something kills us. Just imagine how crowded the planet would be with decrepit worn-out humans, if not for killer bugs. (As one entering old age, I claim the right to say this!)
It’s clear that bubbles of shared belief, sequestered from the world’s pressure and flow, have an important role in the service of wider society. This is how warriors are trained. Boarding schools, the seminary, martial arts, military training: they have their own ethos and belief systems. In India, a guru would instruct his disciples in some yoga or art (playing the sitar, for example). They would repay him with service, not money. In every case the system survives through being useful to all parties, like symbiosis in biology. But just as biological organisms get sick and malfunction, so these bubbles of belief can harbour terrible abuses.
I have no way of knowing whether my years in a cult did me good or harm. You have one life. How could you know if a different path would have been better than the one you took? How do you judge ‘better’? I can only count the regrets; and the satisfactions, if any.
I hate the way I felt superior to those who did not know the true way. Yet when I consider all that I sacrificed, I merely shrug. I hate the ugliness I felt obliged to embrace, out of solidarity with the movement as a whole: having to justify the unjustifiable. I hated the way it made me forsake my own true self, the strong sure voice of my own soul. In short, I don’t mind the losses—in war and natural disaster, you can lose everything. We are a breed lithe enough to survive mere loss. What I most regret is betrayal, wherein truth was twisted into lie.
‘What you are looking for is already within you.’ That was the basic premiss. Sure it was true, if what is already within you happens to be what you are looking for. But when the teacher says, ‘Come with me, I can show you’—that’s when it begins to stink. He puts an idea in your head: you can hitchhike to Heaven! People similar to you believe it. People you judge to be better than you believe it. So you carry on. It takes a while to realize you’re not on a quick hitchhike from A to B, but a life-long bus-journey, at the driver’s tender mercy. He’s so kind, apparently, that he doesn’t want you to get off, ever. What’s the destination? Oh, the journey is the destination! ‘THEN LET ME OFF!’ Ah, but the world is a terrible place, says everyone on the bus. You wouldn’t want to get lost there. And there’s a special curse on free-loaders. You’ve taken so much, given so little back.
It came full circle in the end. Just as my ‘messenger’, my own hitchhiker, had once stepped on, without a by-your-leave, I simply stepped off. What I was looking for is already in me. So what had I been doing? I conclude I was a fool, but the judgement is meaningless. All nature is constructed from trial and error. Surviving mistakes makes us stronger.
If you ask me, hitch-hiking’s not worth it, when you can walk at your own pace, free under the sky.
a wayfarer’s notes 
I love that Goldberg quote!
I have never, to my knowledge, been involved in a cult. I would like to say that I could never be ensnared in one, or that my rebellion against my religious upbringing somehow inoculated me against the possibility with the powerful vaccine of skepticism. But I'm sure no one sees themselves as ripe for cult indoctrination, or even realizes that they've gotten themselves mixed up with a cult at the time!
There was a point in my early 20's -which lasted anywhere from a few months to a little over a year – where I was very involved in the books and ideas of Ayn Rand. Some have described that movement in its heyday as a “secular cult.” Well, it certainly had cult-like aspects to it: an all-encompassing worldview, a rigid code of behavior, a privileged inner-circle, and a most of all, a guru who everyone revered and worshiped. I never picked up any hitchhikers, and I never met the guru, who was long since dead when I arrived on the scene. But yet, I do feel that I was lured behind the “membrane”, that I had my seat on the bus with a view through the clouded window. I eventually saw my way clear. I walked away with what I agreed with, and I discarded the rest as so much nonsense. Believe it or not, I take a softer view of things these days.
Consider that my confession, as I consider this post to be a very difficult confession on your part. It isn't easy to admit that someone else's dogmatic ideas held such sway over your mind.
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Bryan, it was hugely difficult. I have spent the best part of 5 days simply composing the content, editing and re-editing. And am not too pleased with the result. But that dogged sense of duty to a cause kept me at it …
The cause is to warn, nothing more. This would have been ruined, in my opinion, had I assigned blame, or given any hint of the identity of this thing that drew me in for so long, this thing that claimed to show everyone the answer.
Yes, it's clear that the Ayn Rand fan club would qualify, but there are enclaves within every political party and religion that do too. Perhaps the various flavours of fundamentalism are closely allied to the same thing. All is justified for the sake of the True Way!
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I'd like to give you an example of how my mind has changed or how my thoughts have “matured” since those days: (I've actually been planning a longer post on this when I get back to nuclearheadache.)
Take Rand's idea of selfishness being a virtue, which was practically the cornerstone of her philosophy. I still think that people are entitled to the things they've earned, and I still get annoyed at the constant demonizing of selfishness in the most absurd contexts (as we discussed before), but my view on the matter is a bit more complicated these days. I think that Rand, growing up and escaping from Communist Russia, was powerfully adverse to the coercion of kindness and generosity (“altruism” was the term she always used.) She had seen first-hand the ugly results of this coercion. So she took things to the other extreme. She refused to even declare kindness and generosity to be virtue, lest that make anyone feel uncomfortable, make them feel as though they're under a mandate or a moral obligation. I can appreciate that. I can also appreciate that in a weird sense, the kindest thing you can tell someone is that they have the right to pursue their own happiness and they shouldn't feel guilty about that. But yet, I know in my heart of hearts, that kindness and generosity ARE virtues. I know now that the real problem is with coercing these things. They're like butterfly wings; touch them and they're ruined (I may have used that analogy before.)
Anyway, Rand's solution to this problem was not only to never touch the butterfly, but never even to talk about how pretty the butterfly was…to ignore the butterfly altogether and just trust that it would work it's way naturally through human affairs.
On the other hand, Jesus' solution was to invite the butterfly into your heart and by your deeds and examples your fellow human beings would feel compelled to invite the butterfly into their hearts of their own accord and their own free will.
These days I tend much more to Jesus' solution.
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The little I've read of Ayn Rand, I never had a problem with her ideas per se. I didn't particularly embrace them, but enjoyed the fearless originality.
The problem is with cultish admirers, for what they imitate is completely the wrong thing. I admire a philosopher for original thought, which I see as delving deep into one's essence. The followers miss the point entirely.
Another case in point is Freud. His followers saw everything through the distorting lens of dogmas derived from the master. Yet when you look at Freud's own writings (again, I've read hardly any) you are surprised how open, fresh and curious the man is. Like Charles Darwin, he's exploring almost virgin territory and in no position to pontificate with any certainty.
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In my youth I was somewhat weak in the will department and easily swayed by emotion and other people's convictions, having not formed any of my own yet. I was drawn this way and that by different proselytizers, each with their own agenda. I'd stay just long enough to dabble my toes then say “No thank you” and walk away.
Luckily for my own peace of mind that I was poor and had no marketable skills and I wasn't very pretty and the only thing I was good at was projecting an aura of stupidity, which I wore like a hockey mask. Nobody ever fought for me when I walked away.
I got to see some interesting things. I'll admit that. And I'm glad I didn't stick around for the entire bus ride.
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Yes, I've read stories where some of Rand's admirers would smoke the same brand of cigarettes or only decorate their domiciles with paintings by artists that Rand “approved” of. These are extreme cases, of course. But the problem, I think, is that Rand herself kind of encouraged this sort of thing. Ideally, she should have been teaching people to think for themselves, but in actuality a lot of it was bullying people into thinking like her. Reading her books, it often feels like she's bludgeoning you over the head. Part of that comes from her own conviction, and I can hardly fault her for that. But there's also a very, very, heavy tone of intimidation, an implication that if you don't think like her you are a corrupt, evil, pervert. I'm not sure if she did this to be intentionally manipulative or whether she really believed that, but the results are the same.
Freud is another good example. I see him as you do, as a pioneer. I think he was one of the first to really formulate a psychological theory of mind, rather than just of brain. Many of his contemporaries saw everything in strictly physiological terms, even dreams they saw as just symbolical representations of biological processes, as though the mind had nothing more to occupy itself with other than the workings of the body. And yet, there are some flaws in Freud's ideas. I think sex is called upon far too often as the answer to everything. Part of that, I think, was a response to that post-Victorian environment in which he was working. But also, I think it was a vestigial remnant of his colleagues' own tendencies to tie everything to the biological. Taken to a far enough extreme, Freud ends up leading back to very ideas he was breaking free from…everything in the mind having its source in the body.
…And Rev, I can totally see you as the perennial “dabbler.” That may be your saving grace.
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Some people consider Scientology a cult, some a religion, some a personal administration system. I have read parts of several of Ron Hubbard’s Books. The Science of Survival, Ethics, etc., have some decent notions, organizational ideas that “help” one consider certain things that are less easy to consider without the vocabulary he provides. Other things, such as Dianetics, seem absurd. Would Scientology be a cult or a religion or something else?
In general, if people are claiming ownership of truth, I tend to think of them as cultish, not in the traditional sense, perhaps, but in the sense of clannish or clique-ish. The reason so many people disagree about so many things is that the truth is illusive. As soon as someone claims to have corralled it in a universal way, I immediately see an individual whose mind has sadly closed.
One of my favorite quotes:
What is truth, says Pilate
Waits for no answer.
Double your stake, says the clock, to the aging dancer.
Double your guard says authority, treble the bars.
Holes in the sky, says the child, scanning the stars.
And when someone, a cult member, a religious member, or philosopher who has everything figured out, asks me questions such as if “I know the truth,” I am reminded of the words of Emerson in another context:
The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.
The person who knows the truth, denies himself the truth.
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I have never, to my knowledge, been involved in a cult. – Bryan White
Hahahahahha.
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To a non-believer, every belief system is a cult. To a believer, every other belief system is a cult.
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These are true words, Rev! But I think we here, the self-styled wise, the little cult of readers of this blog, are able to narrow down what we seriously label a ‘cult’, implying something sinister thereby.
Personally, and here I may differ from Bryan, I don’t care too much what a person believes. I suppose that is upbringing partly. I must have been taught tolerance towards others’ beliefs. Taught by example, I mean.
I think the danger of religious or ideological beliefs is what happens when they form themselves into a movement. If they are organized like bacteria, as Dennett seems to indicate (I haven’t been able to get hold of his original essay yet), they will give priority to their own survival and replication. Actually, just like any other species! This makes them potentially dangerous. Will they pursue heretics in order to ‘correct’ them, like the Spanish Inquisition? Will they punish blasphemers, or those who abandon the faith? Sometimes it matters little whether or not they actually impose a death penalty: it’s the fear of it, or even the fear of disgrace, which keeps people in line.
So I think this is what I have against Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens. They are attacking the wrong target. The beliefs don’t matter. Out in the world of fresh air, where everything is connected to everything else, and the ‘miscegenation’ of ideas is no crime, beliefs are nothing to fear; no more worthy of mockery than the famous tooth fairy. The thing to fear is that protective membrane which creates its own artificial environment of intolerance and bigotry.
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Vincent, I read your post with great interest. I'm so glad the Natalie Goldberg quote popped out at me from the the Muse book when it did and spoke to you too. A little bit of synchronicity.
“The cause is to warn, nothing more.” When I was exploring different experiences, my older brother by 20 years warned me. I think I poo-pooed his words at the time. I was in my twenties. He said to watch out, don't get sucked in to a cult. His words went something like that. He was a hippie in his hey day. I think his words stuck, that and my stubborn; insecure, yet semi-independent nature. I went to a home that had an ad in the paper. I think they were Hari Krishna worshippers. They were Caucasian, a couple, dressed in traditional Indian clothing. I was the only “student” that showed up. What turned me sour is when the man snapped at me because I touched the rose during a ceremony. I was making it impure, dirty, with my touch. I smiled, but I knew I would never be back. Anyway, I think that was enough for me to continue exploring on my own but just on the rim, so in a way my brother's warning may have impacted me, since I still remember it and I stand by my side, protecting myself.
I appreciate that you've shared your story in a way that can show others to be cautious.
A few other miscellaneous things pop into my head:
-The tarot card–the fool. “The principle of courage; state of no fear; ecstasy and peak experience.” from “The Tarot Handbook”. –Angeles Arrien.
-Ionesco's play Rhinoceros.
-I worked for a wonderful company that some referred to as having a “secret sauce” in their people and methodologies. When they merged, the sauce was ruined. What I found interesting was a comment from when they were smaller and I did not yet work there.. The were apparently out drinking and someone joked of the company in it's infancy, “we're one can short of a cult.” something like that.
Your experience was troubling I know, and I imagine quite difficult to write about. Even though it is a specific experience, it's an important reminder in order for us to keep ourselves in check for being drawn into any cult type behavior.
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In response to John: I think we are mainly agreed. For example we don’t have a problem with Ron Hubbard’s ideas in themselves, but we may think that the Church of Scientology has an organizational structure which exploits its members. For example you take instruction from someone higher up in order to raise your position in the hierarchy. It is a bit like a pyramid selling scheme in that respect.
But I would not view people who claim ownership of truth with suspicion. Aren’t we all certain of being right?
I prefer to keep it quiet, but I know better than the medical profession, for example. I’m convinced I know where orthodox medicine goes wrong, and the alternative versions as well. And possibly the only reason I keep quiet about it is that I’m pretty hazy on the details of my own beliefs.
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Rebb, just seen your comment! Will read later and reply.
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“Out in the world of fresh air, where everything is connected to everything else, and the ‘miscegenation’ of ideas is no crime, beliefs are nothing to fear; no more worthy of mockery than the famous tooth fairy. The thing to fear is that protective membrane which creates its own artificial environment of intolerance and bigotry.”
No, I do agree with this, for the most part. To me I've always noticed that, not only in religion but perhaps even more so in politics, there comes a tipping point of true fanaticism where the ideology begins to overshadow common sense and basic human decency, a point where a person or a group has followed the logic of their basic premise to an extreme where they're either doing something absolutely abhorrent by any normal standard, or have at least drifted into the realm of the completely bizarre. I suppose any “ism” out there could hold those kind of snares, if people invest in them to the point that they lose their humanity.
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Rebb when I said 'the cause is to warn, nothing more' it was in a spur-of-the-moment comment; trying to think why I had written the post, and in that way. I don't think warnings do the trick, because the person who joins a cult is ripe for it, has stopped taking note of what sensible people say. And I wouldn't see any need to warn anyone who reads this blog.
But you experienced this for yourself, when you ignored the sincere warnings of your brother, paying more attention to the earliest alarm bell, and getting out quick.
When you say that my experience was troubling, you are right. And now, in this moment, I see that what made it so troubling was the ignoring of alarm bells, over a prolonged period.
Immunisation is the answer in my opinion. Those who are strong and self-confident are less likely to get trapped. But when I say this, I recall that the leaders were always strong and self-confident, and abetted the trapping of others.
Really I don't know. But I wonder why Ionesco's Rhinoceros came into your head? I don't know it.
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Then we agree closely, Bryan! And I'll tell you what makes people invest in these things that have aspects of the abhorrent or bizarre. It's the promises opened up by the cult's proposition.
And in relation to my previous comment, how come certain strong and confident people joined, and became leaders, I see that they may have smelled a different promise: not a fast way to Heaven, but easy power, and even a fast buck.
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As long as your core beliefs are kept to yourself and affect nobody but yourself, then what you believe in is a religion. Once they start becoming a baseline on how you interpret and try to alter other people's beliefs and actions, then it's a cult.
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You're reasoning for getting off the bus sounds much like an analogy I've use for years as my reason for never getting on one. The paths along the edge of the metaled highway may be full of twists and turns but occasionally we run into an interesting companion to converse with along the way. If all paths lead to God at last then why not walk our own?
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Precisely, Susan! Nothing more to say. And that – to me, though others can choose for themselves – rules out “self-help” books too.
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Rev (being a Rev, you obviously know this by heart:
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. Mark 16:15-16.
By your definition, Christianity has all the makings of a cult.
Islam doesn't bother preaching to non-Muslims, but likes to ensure that children are educated in the Koran, which they learn in Arabic, from the age of 6. Every afternoon, they get taken to the mosque down the end of our street for this session. They seem to like going. Personally I would consider it a terrible fate to have been born into a Muslim family, but children are easily moulded into the culture that they discover.
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There's another symptom of cultishness. Dividing the world into Us and them. They all go about it in different ways, but it's still the same. Us/We are the saved. Them/They are the damned. The gaijin. The unwashed. The heretics. The unbelievers.
They will go to whatever version of hell we believe in. We will go to whatever version of heaven we believe in.
We are a cult.
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Vincent, I can't remember which class it was–some time ago–in that class we read Ionesco's “Rhinoceros.” It's a play about a man and people around him are turning into rhinoceroses. Their behavior changes, they become quite despicable. It comes down to the “herd” mentality–the individual/the masses. Against all odds, despite everyone becoming rhinoceroses, he remains himself. Anyway, reading your experience made me think of this play that stuck in my head because of the wonderful absurdity in which Ionesco portrayed the condition. Similar in theme to Orwell's “1984.” I don't know much else about Ionesco, but my curiosity has been renewed by my exchange with you, so I will read it again and try to learn a bit more about him too. I wish I could read it in the original French. Maybe one day.
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Vincent,
Have you read “Why We Believe in Gods” by Andy Thomson? I just did. It was interesting. I also watched his lecture on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMmvu9eMrg
Although it was interesting, this made me think. His assumptions must be true to him, I know, but some of them I don't agree with such as most people has religion or 50% of children have an imaginary friends. Not in Japan.
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Hi Keiko, I started to watch the video, but to be honest with you, I don't like the sermons of atheists! I'm not a believer, but my heart is with the flock I was brought up in, even though I made myself an outsider from the flock.
I cannot understand the reason for atheists to preach sermons and try to win converts!
But if I write on this topic some time in the future, I might watch the YouTube sermon as research, so thanks for it!
And I'm in sympathy with you on this, with your loyalty to all the traditions of Japan – all the more so because you are exiled from your mother-country.
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Ah, Rebb, you and I are especially allergic to herd behaviour, I think!
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Rev, are you saying that the moment we say “us” and feel a fierce loyalty to the group, we have descended into cultishness? If so, I think you are right. And it is natural too.
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