Cult Following

From the author of How do smart, normal people end up enmeshed in extreme cults? Weird history expert J. W. Ocker strives to answer that question in Branch Davidians: Led by David Koresh, this cult was waiting out the apocalypse in 1993 when the FBI infamously raided their compound in Waco, Texas. Los Narcosatánicos: This cult of drug traffickers in 1980s Mexico was led by Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo, who believed he possessed magic powers and committed human sacrifice. The Seekers: The infiltration and study of this, the earliest known UFO cult, by psychologists inspired the term Ho No Hana Sanpogyo: The founder, Hogen Fukunaga, claimed to be able to tell someone’s fortune by examining their feet. Breatharianism: Breatharians believe that humans can live on air alone. Their founder, Wiley Brooks, claimed to have gone without food for nineteen years. NXIVM: This twenty-first-century cult attracted several Hollywood actresses and engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, and racketeering under the guise of personal development seminars. In <Cult Following<, Ocker sheds light on the terrifying attraction of cults, demonstrating the elasticity of belief, the desperateness of belonging, and the tragedy of trust.

Auteur

J. W. (Jason) Ocker is an Edgar Award winning travel writer, horror novelist, and blogger. His previous nonfiction books include Poe-Land,The New England Grimpendium and The New York Grimpendium, A Season with the Witch, the New York Times-reviewed Cursed Objects, and The United States of Cryptids. He is the creator of the blog and podcast OTIS: Odd Things I've Seen (oddthingsiveseen.com).

Texte du rabat

"A pop history of notable cults, the attraction of these dangerous groups, and the motivations of those who join them"--

Résumé
“A must-read for those with a taste for cult narratives.”—Publishers Weekly

From the author of Cursed Objects and The United States of Cryptids, an eye-popping compendium of the 30 most infamous, audacious, and dangerous cults in history

Have you ever wondered how ordinary people end up enmeshed in extreme cults? Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about history’s most notorious cults—and the psychology of the people who join them—is packed into this accessible, engaging volume. Walk in the footsteps of those who were lured into such sinister groups as:

• Branch Davidians: This cult was waiting out the apocalypse when the FBI infamously raided their compound in Waco, Texas.

• Los Narcosatánicos: This group of drug traffickers in 1980s Mexico committed human sacrifice and believed their leader had magic powers.

• Breatharianism: Breatharians believe that humans can live on air alone, and their founder claimed to have gone without food for seventeen years.

• NXIVM: This twenty-first-century cult attracted Hollywood actresses and engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, and racketeering under the guise of personal development seminars.
• Heaven’s Gate: The Heaven’s Gate UFO cult ended in the suicide of thirty-nine members who believed they would ascent to a spaceship after death.
  In this fascinating collection, weird history expert J. W. Ocker sheds light on the terrifying attraction of cults, demonstrating the elasticity of belief, the desperateness of belonging, and the tragedy of trust.

Échantillon de lecture
&#160; Cult is a scary word. Like terrorist. Or leprosy. Sharknado. Even people in cults don’t like the word cult. Dictionary definitions do little to encapsulate the fear and loathing the word inspires. Merriam-Webster simply describes a cult as “a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious.” The Oxford English Dictionary gets us a little closer to the creepy connotation with “a relatively small group of people having (esp. religious) beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister, or as exercising excessive control over members.”

• • Noted psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, in the 1991 paper “Cult Formation,” goes deeper. To paraphrase, the three elements of his definition are:
    &#160;
    
    1. A charismatic leader who often becomes an object of worship
    2. A process of indoctrination
    3. A mechanism of exploitation, whether that be financial, sexual, or otherwise
       &#160;
  • *
  &#160; Now things are getting scary. But it gets even worse.
• &#160; Cults often seem to end badly—whether in mass suicide, mass murder, or mere public embarrassment. Such as Heaven’s Gate members dead in their bunks, stomachs full of phenobarbital and applesauce. Or Chen Tao in their white clothes and cowboy hats despondently leaving their suburban Texas neighborhood when UFOs didn’t arrive on the day their leader promised. Or *Game of Thrones fans turning off their TVs, gobsmacked at how eight years of investment and dedication were rewarded with anticlimax. And there’s always the good rule of thumb that if a group’s leader wound up dead or in jail, the group was probably a cult.
• &#160;* Despite these multiple definitions, and despite the stranglehold cults have on the public imagination, it’s surprisingly difficult to define a cult, or even to recognize one. For example, there’s a thin, blurry line between a religion and a cult. Lifton’s definition can easily apply to any religion—but the imperceptible delineation between a cult and a religion might just be its level of success. Religions are big. Mainstream. And as for ending badly, religions are large and influential enough to absorb or withstand crimes, scandals, and tragedies within their structures and continue on, ties straightened, collars starched, and halos burnished, in a way that smaller sects cannot.
• &#160;* To complicate the definition even further, cults can form around more than just religious ideas and goals—from the scientific to the political to the commercial. The Remnant Fellowship Church was based on dieting, for goodness’ sake. And, of course, we’ve expanded the definition even further with the term cult following, which we use to describe obsession and fanaticism about pop culture.
• &#160;* But what if I were to tell you that, despite all the fear and strangeness and danger that cults can bring up, joining a cult is one of the most human things a person can do?
• &#160; We all want to belong to something greater than ourselves. To be accepted by like-minded people. &#160;* We all want to believe that our ideas about the world are the ultimate truth of the universe. Cults are that straightforward: purpose, community, and understanding how the world works. Who doesn’t want all those things?
• &#160;* And we are all followers. Even the most egotistical alpha out there follows something or someone. We follow parents and bosses, experts and mentors, cultural norms, laws of the land, and scientific consensus. We follow market trends and fashion trends and social media trends. We are programmed to follow.
• &#160;* Still, nobody actually joins a cult. At least not consciously. According to the cult expert Dr. Steven Hassan as quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald, “People join communities, not cults.” And cults can offer a legitimate sense of community and all the benefits that come with it—friendship, dedication to a cause, stability, shelter. At least at first. The grisly end that many cult members meet with is often the final step in a years-long indoctrination process of members that begins with a lengthy honeymoon period, devolves into increased isolation and control, and culminates in tragedy only once every other escape route is blocked off. Some people never realize that they’ve joined …