Introduction

This article was originally titled "some cult patterns". I ended up with the current one because it's more descriptive of why I found this interesting in the first place. I spent the last 2 days reading about various religions/cults. The scope of my reading was mostly constrained to the USA, but a quick look around kept surfacing the same patterns. Note that this is not a definitive piece on the topic, but just a summary of my own findings.

Some weeks ago, I read a post on why there are so many rationalist cults. Throughout the article, communal living stood as a central theme, and I couldn't help but wonder what could be so interesting about an ideology for it to require communal living. The consistency of its appearance also meant it was a norm, which meant I was missing some very rudimentary history or cultural lore. [1]

Context is all you need

So I doubled down a bit, and through alternate readings, I found out that consistent communal living is/was a spillover from the hippie culture of the 60s. A result of people seeking alternate ways to live. These pods represented a counterculture against norms surrounding religion, environments, politics, music and arts. So yes, another central theme had just appeared, which was a shared desire and consciousness to build a better society. While this could be sliced in many ways, for me, these pods represent a loss of trust in the contemporary normative society.

Of course, communal living has been in existence for a long time, but as far as communal living centered around ideologies in recent times go, it seems the hippies from 60's are the closest ancestors who secularized this culture. I'm happy to hear alternate views on this, so feel free to share. For what its worth, this clarity is only a prerequisite for this article, so I'll go ahead and share the common patterns.

Reduced Patterns

At the end of day 2, I could reduce my notes to these 5 patterns, which basically underpinned most of these clusters(re: religions/cults).

  • Rationalism - This, I personally find extremely hilarious. Rationalism is anchored by reason and logic, and places less emphasis on experience. I was really amazed to discover how Keith Raniere patented rational inquiry, went on to create NXIVM and ended up bagging over 100 years in prison. In contemporary times, there is also a group who would cause so much trouble because they lived by an interpretation of decision theory where “escalation” was always the right option.
  • Apocalyptic Beliefs - Another pattern I noticed was how several variations of an apocalypse was central to the existence of these clusters. The highlight for this pattern would be the MRTCG who declared the world was going to end on 1 January, 2000. After the day passed and nothing happened, the leader set 17 March 2000 as the new date for the apocalypse. By the end of it all, north of 700 people were either gathered, burnt or poisoned. More importantly, this kind of tragedy is far from rare. I wonder if this calls for stronger social regulations backed by law.
  • Isolation & disregard for personal judgement - As part of the beliefs propagated in these pods, disregard for personal judgement and isolation for deserters shows up consistently. Sometimes they're not explicitly stated, but other behaviour systematically amount to this. From certain churches rusticating people and having them sit behind the church congregation, to non-believers being regarded as dirty and soulless. The highlight here will be Diana, who was allegedly subjected to 3hrs of stimulated orgasms as a public demonstration. In order to get through it, they had “to be appreciating this, instead of thinking about it”. Among other gnarly things like reciting nursery rhymes to get by.
  • Identity - This is a classic one, which I believe ties into a human weakness. Leaders of these clusters are not only charismatic, but also mold their mission statements around 2 things. Guarantees of purpose & meaning & secondly, what I call future stability, which seems to be more relevant than current stability. On a more practical side, there's also a strong sense of symbolism within these clusters, in the form of a bias for a particular color, a sigil, or something else.

A major disruption in society seems to be the easiest trigger for a breakout of these clusters, but what I find most intriguing is the consistency of these patterns, across cultures. In the future, I would love to explore what makes people succumb/resistant to these patterns.

[1] I’m aware people cluster around all sorts of missions & ideologies. But rationalism didn’t seem like something to live together with your friends for, you know? go back