To the people who will never see this post because you passed on it as soon as you read the title: you passed because of your cultism, which is fatal for the same reason why you aren’t reading this: you refused to look.
To you reading this: your cultism is treatable.
I say this as a former Evangelical Christian and fundamentalist from 1972-1978, and then a full-fledged Bible cultist for another 15 years. I say this after almost 30 years since I escaped the cult known now as Brunstad Christian Church (BCC) – or “Smith’s Friends” as it was called when I exited – during which time I reformulated my understanding of everything, from scratch, by opening myself up to everything and finding out what actually works. I continue reformulating it every single day in the same way. And I say this as a researcher, analyst, theorist, and writer on cultism and cultic phenomena since 2009.
I know whereof I speak.
If you found a single mouse poop pellet (they’re quite small) on your laden dinner plate, you would likely toss the whole plate of food into the trash and sterilize the plate.
Why people behave differently with their cultism and defend their precious plate laden with dogma, ritual, tradition, “belief system” – honestly, when was there anything systematic about religious belief “systems”? – along with the huge comfort of sitting at table together with your “community” that cooked it all up, well…
I feel like saying that I have no clue, except that wouldn’t be true.
I know exactly why.
I could get into the nuts and bolts of what a cultist is and why you are one and how you likely became one. It’s no big mystery, once we clear the Vaseline out of our eyes and focus them. I could even explain why I so freely declare you a cultist when I know nothing about you – except that I know you eat food, pee, and poop, for example, so I know you’re a cultist similarly – but none of that is necessary, because you do what a cultist does in small or large degree. We can see it and you can see it.
If you’ll look.
So, let’s start there.
The litmus test for cultism is wickedly simple: Does the person look?
Do they look at information of unknown reliability, or are they afraid and refuse to look — especially at information which they suspect will contradict their plate full of precious cultism amassed after years, decades, lifetimes of not looking — both their own refusal to look and the cumulative refusal to look by those from whom they got their “food”?
That’s it and that’s all.
It doesn’t matter whether they refuse to look or, for whatever reason, they’re unable to look. It doesn’t matter why they refuse to look or they’re unable to look. It doesn’t matter, really, whether they want to look or not, because I’m talking behavior here – discernible, observable, identifiable, measurable behavior.
If a person either refuses to look or simply cannot manage to look at information of unknown reliability, they are a cultist.
If a person does not and will not look, they are a cultist.
But that means anyone who can’t bear to look at the gruesome, the horrific, the unconscionable, the monstrous, is a cultist.
True.
That means that everyone who turns their eyes away from seeing the evil around them is a cultist.
True.
That means all children are cultists.
Duhr. True.
My mom used to tell the story of taking me and my brother to the movie theater to see Disney’s Fantasia (back in the days when people used to “go to the movies” and movie theaters were the only places to go) and how I’d cover my eyes with my hands during the scary (to me) parts, saying, “Can’t look! Can’t look!” But then, even as I was saying it, I’d spread my fingers a crack, just enough to peek through and keep watching. My curiosity was just too much for me to stop myself from looking.
The very curiosity that can blow cultism apart. The very curiosity that must, by every available means, be killed in order to become a cultist and/or form a cult.
So, let’s check in with you. If you’re offended or irked by the derogatory implications of my choice to use “cultist” for people who refuse or are unable to look – mind you, implications which arose in your mind before you knew if those implications were intended by me or whether they were in my mind or not – let’s look at what I’ve actually said.
This is all I’ve said: cultist = someone that refuses or is otherwise unable to look.
Cultist = does not look
Well, couldn’t I use a different term that isn’t so loaded and inflammatory?
No.
Why?
Because there is no reason to.
When it comes to the only thing that actually matters, there is no difference between a person who refuses or is unable to look and a Scientologist or a Moonie or an Order of the Solar Temple member or a Branch Davidian member or a Jonestown victim.
And what is this “only thing” that actually matters?
How we handle new information of unknown reliability.
That one behavior tells all.
For the purpose of identifying cultism and cultists, nothing else matters. All the other ways and characteristics and check boxes that people associate with cults are symptoms that develop after refusing to look for a protracted period of time – or after making a commitment to refuse to look as a requirement for joining a cult.
I’m well aware that my statement might seem to defenestrate pretty much all the work that has been done so far in the “cultic studies” field because, so far, all of it has focused on cultism as identified by fringe symptomology. In other words, it only starts looking at cultism after it has ruled out the biggest examples of cultism because: 1. They’re so big and “powerful”; and 2. They’re so familiar and accepted, so “mainstream”.
In effect, cultic studies has largely been a cultic enterprise – so far.
I’m not throwing all that work out the window. I highly regard the work that’s been done to date. It’s all been extremely valuable work, regardless of which side it’s on in the “mind control” controversy that continues to rage among cult researchers and experts.
I am extending that work to cover the entire domain, not just the selected portion that seems alien to us and has criminal and horrifically inhuman outcomes.
I’m not rejecting or degrading all that good work, but I am saying that none of it has, until now, looked at cultic phenomena with an eye to the crucial mechanism around which all cults revolve, the key aspect of cultism that makes or breaks any kind of cult formation. None of that work has produced a simple litmus test for cultism, one that works at any level of cultism with any degree of cultism. None of that work has isolated the single, ever-present chink in cultic armor through which antidotes can be administered.
Watch how people handle new information of unknown reliability, and you will see in no uncertain terms how often and how big and bad a cultist they are or are not.
But that cannot be right, right?
Well, I don’t need to answer or argue that question, really, because now you will get to see how cultic you really are.
Will you look for an answer to that question?
Will you look at what I’m saying and consider it honestly, thoughtfully?
Will you look at what I’ve said as it applies to what’s really going on with you and what’s really going on around you, not only in your head (which is also great, not knocking it)?
Will you look at what you, thus far, have refused to look at?
Will you look at how strong your refusal to look is?
Will you look at how refusing to look is diametrically opposed to your learning, growing, developing, and becoming a wiser and more competent person?
Will you look – in the name of Truth, God, and all that’s good, but even more importantly, in the name of the precious people you claim to love and care about -- at WHY THE HELL you would EVER, for any reason, refuse in the least to look in the first place?
The question is not, “Am I a cultist?” After all, given what I’ve said here, the fact that you’d even take that question sincerely would be none other than looking at it. So, your answer might well turn out to be, upon looking and examining and thinking it all through, “No.”
Of course, though, if you’re not a cultist, you’ve already looked at all these things I’ve mentioned, so you already know.
And then I’ll stand corrected in your case. I’m always wrong about everything until I finally figure out what’s right, so I’m very used to getting wised up. That’s no problem for me.
The real question is, “How much of a cultist am I?”
Will you look at that?
I hope so.
I do – every single amazing day.