My Cultish Devotion to Cults
I’m too skeptical and stubborn to join, but still I can’t look away
One subject I’ve returned to time and time again is cults. The first one I wrote about was EST for the Boston Phoenix; then I wrote about Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh for the Village Voice. There was hardly a cult I didn’t want to learn about and try to decipher. I am glued to documentaries about NXIVM and the mini-series about the Branch Davidians and podcasts about Synanon and Scientology. I am fascinated by cults, and by extension, fascinated by my fascination with them. What draws people to surrender their identity to a controlling, self-serving entity? And why was I so drawn to understanding them?
When I was in college in the 1970s, cults were popping up like mushrooms around the United States. I was part of a generation that had thrown off the conventional anchors of society. For many people, being unmoored was thrilling but terrifying. A firm embrace by a community that offered a home, a purpose, and a set of rules and rituals could be irresistible for some of them, so cults thrived. I had a college friend who spent the summer after her junior year at loose ends, hitchhiking around California. One day, a cute guy chatted her up in a record store and invited her to a party. The party, hosted by adherents of the Unification Church, lasted for a year —…
