The Cult

“We are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.”

Yoda to Luke Skywalker, The Last Jedi

Really? We’re calling this a cult? Really? yes, really. And you may ask why, and I will answer. Cult is a scare word, used by larger, older, and more established religions against rivals who are younger, smaller, and less popular with the establishment power base. Cult comes from the same root word as culture, and the term itself is derived from the Mystery Cults of ancient Greece, which had more in common with fraternal orders than modern cults. But there is a place in the conversation for real concerns about totalist organizations of the sort that are typically labeled cults. But to do that, we need to understand what a cult, or more accurately, a totalist organization is and how it works. And we can’t do that if cult is a scary word that means: bad things, do not think about.

So we have to defang the word cult, and then look under the hood and learn how it works. And we do that by using the word cult. We do that by using the word cult a lot.

Cult. Cult. Cult.

So congratulations, we’re a cult.

Boo!

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Recommended Reading:

• The Anatomy of Fascism, by Robert O. Paxton
• Terror, Love, and Brainwashing, by Alexandra Stein
• On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder
• The Hitler Salute: On the Meaning of a Gesture, By Tilman Allert