So You've Decided To Join A Cult

posted on 5/27/2015 by the Salt City Sinner

It's a beautiful day outside! Spring is blossoming on the brink of summer, the warm air is laden with birdsong and sweet, golden pollen, and you've decided to join a cult.

This is not a wholly unusual life choice, and although your friends, family, coworkers, and various psychiatric professionals may be dismayed by your decision, or even tell you that you're making a horrible mistake that will destroy your life, this modest bloggue is a judgement-free zone and staunch defender of your political and religious liberty and your right to live according to your Sincerely Held Beliefs™, no matter how unusual they may be.

You may think that this means that your decision-making days are over. This is, unfortunately, not true YET. After all, planet Earth in the year 2015 offers you a magnificent array of options in terms of cults that are eager to have you on board. To help determine which cult might be a good fit for you, we have compiled the following short list of four cults that, we believe, offer something special that will appeal to the potential cult member.

THE LAROUCHE MOVEMENT

Not all cults are religious in nature – heavens, no! Just ask anyone who has had dealings with Objectivists. In fact, the best place to find LaRouchies is also the best place to find Objectivists – namely, your local college campus.

This cult exists to promote the political and economic ideas of one Lyndon LaRouche, a 92-year-old Quaker from New Hampshire who has run for the presidency more times than most American citizens have voted. LaRouche and his followers often run as Democrats, although their beliefs are hard to classify as either liberal or conservative, though they do share some important taxonomic characteristics with fascism (but that's a story for another day).

What sets the LaRouchies apart is less their political ideas – which are weird and complicated and, usually heavily involve trains for some reason – than the activities of the movement itself. The LaRouchies, who have spread far beyond the United States to France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Hungary, and beyond, have harassed and intimidated members who wish to leave, done fierce combat with unfriendly journalists, and have even engaged in street-level violence.

Are you a fan of trains, the gold standard, Ronald Reagan's “Star Wars” space defense initiative, and, for some reason, retuning the A note in music from 440 Hz to 432 Hz (I'm not making that up)? The LaRouche movement may be for you!

THE SECT OF HACKWRENCH

If studying the disjointed political ramblings of a nonagenarian is not for you, and/or you are looking for something a little more spiritual, allow me to humbly suggest the Sect of Hackwrench. The “Hackwrench” in question is Gadget Hackwrench, whom the geekier amongst you will instantly recognize as a cartoon mouse who acted as the mechanic and inventor for the team in Disney's early 90s television series“Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers.”

Why deify a cute and mechanically inclined cartoon mouse? Some of her followers are happy to explain (via Odditycentral):

“She is the divine being, the most untouched and perfect sibling of the great God on Earth”. “Why I love her? It’s a stupid question, how could I not love the Goddess?”. “She is strict, cute, optimistic and her level of technical knowledge is unachievable for a mortal being.” 

If you are as eager as the dickens to sign up to worship the Creator God's sister, Gadget, it may behoove you to move to Russia, where the Sect is currently based. Or start a chapter stateside, and recruit fellow believers at your local Comic Con!

DEEP GREEN RESISTANCE

Has civilization got you down? Did you read the Unabomber Manifesto and think to yourself “This Kaczynski guy is really on to something!”

Well in that case, do we ever have the cult for you! Deep Green Resistance is a relatively young (2011) organization that seeks no less than the total destruction of civilization (or, at least, “civilization” as defined by industrial political economies, hierarchy, and environmental destruction). In this regard, DGR is a great place for people who might be anarchists save for the fact that they hate anarchists and also hate trans* people (and, it goes without saying, hate people who require medical technology to survive).

DGR was founded by and is headed by one Derrick Jensen, who must be one beguiling hunk of manflesh, because when you enter “is Derrick Jensen” into Google, the first search suggestion is “is Derrick Jensen single?” Watch out, ladies! (“REAL,” GENETIC LADIES, THAT IS)

GOR

Everyone knows that science fiction authors start the best cults (or, according to the Internal Revenue Service of the United States o America, the best “religions”). This is only to be expected – writers of speculative fiction, after all, have the imagination, the drive, and the commercial savvy.to succeed where countless would-be prophets have failed.

Sure, Scientology may be the most prominent example, but keep in mind that withered racist weirdo H.P. Lovecraft convinced the entire occult community that the Necronomicon is a real book, and who among us occultists has never whispered a quiet “Hail Cthulu” when the chips are truly down?

If you like your cult overtly based on a work of fiction but find the New Testament to be distinctly lacking in hot, sexxxy BDSM themes, you may be a Gorean and not even know it yet!

Gor is based on the writing of John Norman, who believes that the “order of nature” (male dominance and female submission, silly, what did you think he means?) has been corroded and confused by industrialization and mean feminists. To celebrate the “natural order” of things, many Goreans live out Norman's ideas by entering into master/slave, Total Power Exchange relationships. Sounds a lot better than joining a Men's Rights Activist subreddit, doesn't it? After all, unlike every MRA in recorded history, Goreans apparently get laid! If you're reading this from Utah, I have even better news for you – the Goreans have an incredibly robust presence in the UT BDSM/kink community (I, uh, “heard it from a friend,” wink wink)!

If none of the groups profiled here, take heart. There are new cults popping up every day, catering to all spiritual malaises and deprivations imaginable. And if you can't find one you like, why not start your own cult and start putting people under your no-doubt sagacious sway?

I mean, what are you – some kind of freakish, unlovable loner?